


Project Vision

by chancellorxofxtrash (PhoebeMurdivine), InsertImaginativeNameHere



Category: Durarara!!, ヴぁんぷ! - 成田良悟 | Vamp! Series - Narita Ryohgo
Genre: Banter, Eventual Plot, Nebula being assholes, Other, Slow Burn, there's actually a plot to this not just the two of them bitching at each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8081380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoebeMurdivine/pseuds/chancellorxofxtrash, https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertImaginativeNameHere/pseuds/InsertImaginativeNameHere
Summary: In theory QAWSED, codename “Hackey Mouse” had complete control over the internet. And in 95% of the virtual networks, it was true.Except…





	1. The Beginning

In theory QAWSED, codename “Hackey Mouse” had complete control over the internet. And in 95% of the virtual networks, it was true. He could see all, and take control over anything he wanted. If he had wanted he could waltz in the most secure networks, be it the Pentagon or Nebula. (Had he done that before? ...maybe. Mostly didn’t leave any signs behind, though.)

(Mostly.)

(Some hilarious “typos” do not count.)

He could go down to the secret websites without problem as well. Hidden internet behind hidden internet, “deep web”, “dark web”, “deep dark web”. The last one was the supernatural-only network. Not very creatively named, Hackey wasn’t really comfortable with it, but whatever. He secretly called it “void web”. Maybe Hawking would have taken offense, but not like Hawking could interact with Hackey now could he?

He could take control of computers, and phones, even remote control vehicles. He wasn’t just simply part of the network, it was like he _was_ the network - okay, this was an overstatement, but this was how it fealt to be Hackey. Complete control, freedom. The virtual world was Hackey’s playground.

It was very nice, indeed.

Except…

Except for a small, tiny network. It was very small, compared to the vast size of the whole virtual world. A small blind spot.

Hackey didn’t like the thought of having a blind spot.

It was a relatively small network in Tokyo - it wasn’t even the size of a full special ward, it was a much smaller district. Ikebukuro, it was called. Quite a busy district.

Boy, in a few days, Hackey got to really know that name, as he kept trying to make the blind spot go away. Blind spots were so… inconvenient. Wasn’t it the point of not having a physical body, that he _wouldn’t_ have blind spots?

He tried as many possible ways in as he could. He poked at every possible weak points he could imagine, and then some. But no, every single try got pushed back, every single one of his attacks, be it more aggressive, or more subtle, they were always pushed back.

Okay. It was official. There was something keeping him out from Ikebukuro.

Something, or…

 

“Why do you care this much about a small district in Ikebukuro?”

Doubs asked one day, and Hackey gave out an indingant huff.

<It’s not about Ikebukuro. By this point, this is a matter of principles. I don’t like being kept out.>

“Maybe I could put some of your code into a pendrive and take you inside?”

<Ha. No offense, friend, but no way I’d trust ya with putting me into that shiny pocket of yours. Also, that would be cheating.>

“And since when did you care about playing fair?”

<Okay, okay, point taken, but… there is something there, yanno? And I don’t just want to go around it. I want to find out what it is.>

“Or who.”

Hackey didn’t answer for a few moments, and Doubs just looked at his phone.

“Come on. Don’t say you didn’t think about it.”

<I did. I don’t like the idea.>

It was even quiet for a few more moments, before Hackey gave out a digital sigh. Not like he _needed_ to sigh, but it was a nice way to show his reaction to everyone listening. Currently, Doubs.

<Yanno… it is quite likely it might be some _one._ I got encrypted mails somewhere from Ikebukuro. Yes, that’s the smallest I could narrow it down to, and it was a link to some books about Ikebukuro, written by someone named Tsukumoya.>

“Do you think it’s this Tsukumoya guy who’s keeping you out?”

<Dunno. Maybe.>

“Were the books at least good?”

<Who’s sayin’ I read ‘em?>

“Oh, come on. Of course you did.”

<They were a’right.>

 

As far as Tsukumoya Shinichi knew, he was the only fully-functional AI currently operating online. Which was why the other one had come as a not altogether pleasant or unpleasant surprise. In fact, it was hardly even a surprise, if he was being honest. It was only to be expected. The internet was a vast, intricate place and Tsukumoya kept to his corner of it. His eddy in a swift flowing river; though Ikebukuro was hardly still or calm. His ever-changing, ever-evolving city. So it was only to be expected that those parts of the internet he hung back from in favour of Ikebukuro would have their own specific denizens. He had known this in theory and should have expected to have to deal with it in practise at some point, yet he hadn’t spared it too much thought. These hypothetical others could stick to their world. He had made his world Ikebukuro and as such had no expectations of anyone else taking the interest he did - he knew, deep down, his fascination with this extraordinary place was largely whimsical, that others were unlikely to share even a modicum of his professional regard for the city, let alone any particular fondness for it. In his existence thus far, he had never encountered another, not in Ikebukuro, and he saw no reason for this to change.

And then the other one started trying to get in.

Tsukumoya could feel it immediately with the buzzing persistence of what he assumed gnats were like to humans, sometimes trying to sneak past his defences, other times trying to force their way through, somewhat clumsily, need it be added? Ordinarily it would have been a welcome amusement to watch this stranger’s various attempts (and subsequent failures) to enter Ikebukuro, but Tsukumoya was otherwise occupied with business; he had a looming deadline with his publishers wanting an update on his latest book, and as if that wasn’t enough, Orihara was pestering him about his identity again like the attention-seeking child that he was. Tsukumoya came to the conclusion he ought to ban Orihara from his chatroom on a temporary basis, much to the other information broker’s chagrin, swiftly submit the most recent chapter to his publishers, and then settle down to toying with this other intelligence, testing what it could do. He would seem to give them an in, then barricade the metaphorical door at the last moment. This wasn’t a perfect description, but it was one the human mind would understand. He’d watch them run themselves in rings, taking note of the frustration they exuded. He even sent him links to the online editions of his books to either pique their interest or alternatively irritate them all the more. Then, after the game, such as it was, had continued for a couple of weeks or so, he abruptly opened a chat tab and sent the other entity a message.

_Time to make a proper introduction, methinks._

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Having fun, are you?

 

Hackey stopped - he was trying something which was sure to win (come on everyone lets through spam mail, he could get through spam mail), when the chat opened. With a message.

From the author of the books.

_So this is how we’re gonna play, huh._

 

Alright, first. Set a nickname. And give a good comeback for all the annoyance he had caused.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

absolutely.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

btw, ur writing is mediocre at best.

 

If Tsukumoya could have smirked, he would have. How delightfully immature. Everything from the text-speak to the insult were so childish it was almost beautiful. Only to be expected from someone who had spent two weeks trying to get into Ikebukuro through a series of hopelessly transparent ruses.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I assume that’s why I receive primarily positive reviews. Evidently the general public have a subpar taste in writing, though critics don’t tend to suffer the same lack of taste in my experience.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

On another note, what sort of name is Hackey Mouse? Seriously?

 

Good thing Hackey did not have any eyes, because he would have narrowed them. Okay then, it was on.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i tried to keep track of what you wrote but got bored halfway thru

 

**Hackey Mouse**

it is my codename. alias. a.k.a.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

my real name is QAWSED btw, not like it matters, everyone calls me Hackey. bc i’m cool like that. that i have an alias. ha.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

My, a codename. How mysterious of you. Are you sure you should be blurting out your real name to a lowly writer like me, and one whose works you admit to being unable to finish?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Now what does that say about you, I wonder?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And what does it say about your attention span, or lack thereof?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Furthermore, what kind of a name is QAWSED, honestly? That’s no better.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i have as long of an attention span as i wanna have

 

**Hackey Mouse**

not my fault ur boring

 

**Hackey Mouse**

it ain’t a big secret, everyone knows both of my names, u call me whatevs

 

**Hackey Mouse**

dont particularly care

 

**Hackey Mouse**

whataya mean what kinda name?! it is my name. pronounced ‘keyboard’

 

**Hackey Mouse**

what kinda name ‘Tsukumoya Shinichi’ is either way?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

In no language are the letters ‘QAWSED’ pronounced keyboard. I’d be interested to know what alphabet you think you are working from.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

As for my name, it is my name. It’s a perfectly ordinary Japanese name. I, at least, have made an effort to sound plausible, rather than reaching for the most ridiculous ‘name’ that comes to mind.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Let’s get to the point, shall we? Why are you trying to get into Ikebukuro?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i think u meant ‘perfectly boring’

 

**Hackey Mouse**

[ http://images.lmgtfy.com/?q=keyboard ](http://images.lmgtfy.com/?q=keyboard)

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and y not?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

What you think of my name is none of my concern.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Especially as your own leaves a lot to be desired, even now you point out its genesis. Why would I consider your opinion on names worthwhile at all?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Why not? Because this is my city, naturally. I shudder to think what you would do if you got in here.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Though naturally I don’t shudder of course, I was being hyperbolic. The fact remains I distrust your motivations.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

To you this is little more than a vacation, to me, it is my home. No trespassers permitted.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

then stop making comments abt my name

 

**Hackey Mouse**

_your_ city? didn’t see ur name on it. also u cant own a city

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and i find ur lack of faith in me disturbing. u dont even kno me. y do u think i’d do anything to “ur city”?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Then the issue of names is now closed, if this is what it leads to.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

It’s my city because I take a passing, observer’s interest in it. Call it petty if you like, but it is where I choose to base my existence. If you’d read my books, you’d understand.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

No. I don’t know you. Which I why I aim to keep you out. If I did know you, I doubt I’d grant you access. It’s nothing personal, you understand, it’s just a basic rule, maintains some sense of order in all the chaos this city contains.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

could you _BE_ any more pretentious? just curious.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

wtf

 

**Hackey Mouse**

u cant declare an ownership of a city just bc u happen to fancy it

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and wow. WOW. **W. O. W.**

 

**Hackey Mouse**

one day, i’ll get in, yanno. now it’s _definitely_ on like Donkey Kong.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Could I be more pretentious? Is that a challenge? Are you really interested to see just how pretentious I can get, QAWSED?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And for your information, I don’t fancy the city. I’m an objective observer. There is a difference, though I doubt you could grasp that, since you don’t seem to be capable of reading my books, which would clear the matter up.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Please, isn’t this getting old already? You’re not getting in, face facts. I know this city better than you ever could. I can keep you out without any effort at all.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

So go ahead, keep on trying to get in. See where it gets you. And when you’re in exactly the same situation you were when we began this conversation, maybe consider finding a new hobby. This one is terribly sad. Almost puts you on the same level as Orihara.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Oh, never mind who he is. Not someone you’d want to replicate, that’s my point. Are you sure you want to continue with this farce?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

oh shut urself down. i did read thru ur books. still boring.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i live in more hectic situations daily. u kno. side-effects of being a vampire.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

now _that_ is a challenge.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and honestly i need to congratulate you because the first time since i can remember that i am wishing that i’d have a physical body so i could strangle you

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and i know a few annoying people so you can be proud of this achievement

 

**Hackey Mouse**

[ https://s3.amazonaws.com/achgen360/t/YJU13AeK.png ](https://s3.amazonaws.com/achgen360/t/YJU13AeK.png)

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

A vampire? While I am of course aware of the existence of said beings, I do somewhat question whatever loose definition allows you to term yourself a vampire. Ah, never mind. Call yourself what you will, that is your business.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

While comparatively this city may seem tame to you, it still has its features of interest. To me, anyway. I doubt you’d find it so intriguing from the inside. The only reason you want in is to get past me, and that isn’t going to happen.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And thank you. I’m truly flattered. In my line of work I do get occasional death threats, they’re always amusing, but I think I’ll remember this one specially for its uniqueness. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to be getting on with, have a nice day. I’m sure you have better things to be doing.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

But if you ever _do_ want to chat, I’ll be here. 24/7, you know how this goes, don’t you?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Goodbye, QAWSED.

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

With that, Tsukumoya evicted this ‘Hackey’ from the chat. Of course, if QAWSED tried to get into Ikebukuro or send anything to him, he’d know about it immediately and be able to see it. And the other AI knew this, undoubtedly. Tsukumoya wondered how long he would be willing to continue this charade for. How long before QAWSED got bored and moved on to other entertainments?

 

Who knew?

 

Tsukumoya hoped it would be soon.

 

He decided it was probably time to grant Orihara access to the chat again. He could resume normal operations while ignoring QAWSED most of the time. It wasn’t as though keeping him out of Ikebukuro would be any challenge whatsoever.

 

Still. It would be nice when he stopped trying, wouldn’t it?

 

Assuming, that is, perhaps somewhat optimistically, that he _did_ stop.

 

Until then, best to get to know his enemy. Research him. Dig up information.

 

Tsukumoya was good at that; and water was wet and fire burnt. He would find out about this QAWSED or Hackey Mouse, or whatever he wanted to call himself. The comment about vampires gave him more than enough to go on.

 

So next time - and there would obviously be a next time, he would be rather more well-informed about his...foe? Enemy? Nemesis? No, all of these were too confrontational. Lacking objectivity.

 

Opponent.

 

His _opponent_.

 

That would do.

 

Until then, time to go and infuriate Orihara with vague-yet-obvious statements about who and what he was. Orihara would never figure it out. Never. Sometimes Tsukumoya thought if he did come clean, he would simply never believe it and assume Tsukumoya was mocking him, so proud was he on his ability to identify humans.

 

And left QAWSED to repeatedly fail to get under his skin.

 

Or whatever it was he did when left to his own devices.

  
  


“Are you done?”

Doubs was getting bored with Hackey’s ranting, as he looked at the monitor of his computer, where a mouse mascot was bouncing up and down in an irritable way.

<Yea, yea. I just can’t…. yanno, I can’t believe the first other AI I meet with, ends up being so… so…>

“So like you?”

A few angry flashes on the screen. Very blue flashes. Blue-screen-of-death coloured flashes.

“...no offence. Please, don’t format my hard drive again.”

<I never formatted your hard drive, I just made ya believe I did. And I am taking full offence to this! I am not pretentious!>

“It’s almost poetic isn’t it? You have a habit of annoying people, and the only other artificial intelligence you run into ends up annoying you. Have you ever heard of a term called karma?”

<Karma usually affects ya in your next life, not still in your lifetime, dont’cha even know this much, Doubs?>

“I think karma makes a few exceptions to long-lived individuals such as ourselves, don’t you think?”

<Ya know, Doubs, no, I really don’t think so. I think Tsukumoya is just a pretentious ass.>

Doubs smirked at the little mouse mascot on the screen who now had smoke coming out of it’s ears.

“You’re just annoyed you don’t get along with someone like you. I mean I get it. You felt like a solitary existence, even among us, vampires. And now what? Now you get a second one, and you don’t get along. It might be hurtful.”

<It ain’t. This ain’t what this is about. You are overthinkin’ stuff, as usual.>

“Oh? Then what is it about?”

A chuckle came out from the speakers.

<He was all calm and collected, yanno? I wonder how he acts like when he loses his temper.>

“So you’re gonna poke him until he blows up?”

<Whataya think? More or less.>

“And also because it hurts your pride that you can’t get into Ikebukuro.”

<Ain’t gonna lie. I definitely want to prove that smug bastard wrong, yanno?>

“Well, good luck with that, my friend.”

<Luck ain’t got anything to do with it. I just have to outsmart him.>

“Easier said than done?”

<Maybe...> the mascot finally stopped fuming and started bouncing excitedly this time. Honestly, Hackey had whiplash-inducing mood swings sometimes. <’tis kinda exciting too, yanno? A real challenge. Most mortal hackers ain’t getting anywhere close enough to cause me a challenge.>

“What if you can’t get through him?”

<Oh, I’m gonna. Maybe not tomorrow, or this year, but I’m gonna. I have all the time in the world, after all.>

 

-

 

Over the next few weeks, QAWSED proved to be an absolute pain in the neck. He didn’t let up, constantly was on the offensive, constantly trying to get in, constantly spamming Tsukumoya with outdated memes. It didn’t really obstruct Tsukumoya in any way but it _was_ an irritation. He could keep QAWSED out until the end of days but that didn’t mean he’d enjoy interacting with him.  He took pleasure in blocking QAWSED’s every move, amped up his own inherent pretentiousness to annoy the other AI as much as he could. Wasn’t QAWSED trying to do exactly the same? This was, after all, a game of wills. Neither of them wanted to admit defeat. They were both too stubborn for that. It was likely that neither of them had ever encountered anyone they could consider a real challenge before now, not like this, someone inside the internet with a similar, albeit slightly different, perspective. Not that Tsukumoya found keeping QAWSED out consciously difficult, he didn’t even have to think about it most of the time, but he knew deep down if he wasn’t here his defences would be strained to their limits. They would hold up, but they wouldn’t like it. He doubled down on his security, making sure it was subtle enough to go unnoticed by most but simultaneously strong enough to block QAWSED while being blatant enough to annoy him. A fine balancing act.

 

Another thing that infuriated the other AI which Tsukumoya made sure to always do was persistently call him QAWSED in the most quietly condescending ways possible. He claimed it was out of an acquired sense of very Japanese propriety and formality, which to a degree it was, however as soon as he knew it irked him, he decided to stick with it and even increase the frequency of usage. He had to do something petty, that was what this game was. That was the point of it all.

 

He felt like Orihara would appreciate QAWSED’s nonsense. They were both immature children, they both liked attempting to frustrate him. Only difference was one was better at it than the other, and 9 times out of 10 it wasn’t Orihara, try as he might.

 

Tsukumoya wasn’t sure _why_ QAWSED continued with it, when he had free reign of the entire rest of the internet and a group of friends and literally a million and one better things to do. But he did, despite the fact he had zero interest in Ikebukuro (an offence in itself), he kept trying to get in, purely because it annoyed Tsukumoya. Purely because he could.

 

Sometimes it wasn’t even that. Sometimes he just tried to _rickroll_  Tsukumoya for no reason. Not that there ever was a reason for this. No, someone just had too much free time. Didn’t they now?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Really? You think I don’t recognise that url when I see it? Moreover, why are you even trying to rickroll me?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

because y not?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

because u r a pain in the ass, and rickrolling is funny

 

**Hackey Mouse**

because i actually find the song catchy as hell

 

**Hackey Mouse**

maybe i just enjoy fucking with u

 

**Hackey Mouse**

take your pick

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I somewhat doubt whether rickrolling is funny to anyone over twelve, however I will choose take it as a compliment that you see me as worthy to mess with.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And I find your company so pleasant too.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

oh wow tone down the sarcasm i think ur meltin my servers

 

**Hackey Mouse**

also ur wrong, rickrolling is one of the best practical jokes ever. fact.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

If your servers are incapable of handling some mild sarcasm, that would be your problem rather than mine. Perhaps endeavour to rectify this?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’m sure it is. It must be your bland delivery that makes this truly inspired and original jest fall so flat. Yes, that must be it.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Thank you so much for this clarification, QAWSED.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

As it turns out, the factor preventing any hilarity is you.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

was that a challenge?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i can do better than that

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and before u go all sarcastic on me again - no i don’t particularly care whether u believe me or not

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i’ll just have to prove u wrong a few times that’s it, and that ain’t impossible, despite what ur smug face might think

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’m sure you enjoy clinging to that belief, don’t you?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Do have fun.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Also find yourself a more productive hobby. This must be getting tedious by now.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

do not flatter urself. just because i find the time to send u some stuff, it doesn’t mean this is the only thing i focus on. i have a lot of hobbies and i’m great at multitasking, yanno.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

also, unlike u, i have friends.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

friends who are actual beings and not just a city

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Ah, now that’s where you’re wrong.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I never claimed to be friends with the city at all.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

You see, the city doesn’t care about you. Or me. Or anyone. It is impossible to be friends with the city itself.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And besides, as I have said before, I am merely an impartial observer. Need I reiterate this again?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

nah. got old the first time u said it

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and honestly i have better things to do other than hearing u go on and onnnn and oonnnnnnnnnn abt ur crush on the city

 

**Hackey Mouse**

(“impartial” my ass dont even start with that)

 

**Hackey Mouse**

so catch ya later~

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Pleasure as always, QAWSED.

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

Tsukumoya made a note of that - _it annoys QAWSED when you talk about the city. Definitely talk about it more in future_.

 

There would of course be a future. QAWSED wouldn’t just shut up and go away, which was a disappointment. Tsukumoya would have to put up with this for the forseeable future.

 

It could be worse, anyway.

 

QAWSED could stand a chance of getting in.

And that possibility was so implausible, it was almost funny.

 

-

 

Right. Okay. One thing Hackey had to realise - he wouldn’t get into Ikebukuro easily. Tsukumoya had an advantage against him - he was basically a hermit, as far as Hackey could tell the other AI never put his figurative foot out of that city, and this meant he knew the area better than Hackey could. Sure, he could look into outside sources, but that was different. He didn’t _know_ the area.

Which meant he’d have to get creative, and look for openings. Creativity was good. Creativity, he could do.

Also, _he_ couldn’t get in. As an AI, his code was way too complex, and way too hard to hide, especially from another AI. Which meant he couldn’t _yet_ get in. _Yet._ Not yet. Important distinction. Not like he’d voice this to Tsukumoya, no. That would be like admitting defeat, which he definitely did not do, oh no. Just shifted his focus a tiny bit.

So, he couldn’t get in yet. But other files definitely could. He could communicate with Tsukumoya through the chat. He could send _things._

And that’s exactly what Hackey Mouse did.

 

Sadly enough, this was a two-way street, as Hackey soon had to remember. Tsukumoya might not have _left_ Ikebukuro, but he could send… well. _Gifts,_ straight back at him.

Like that one time, when Hackey managed to get into one of Tsukumoya’s editors’ email account. And sent a very professional-looking email to Tsukumoya, with a video linked (“Your books became part of a discussion on SDCC, I got you a record of that.”), which obviously wasn’t what he claimed it to be.

It was obviously a rickroll - but no, obviously not the actual video. Tsukumoya would recognize the url, after all again. So Hackey had to make a new video - and he replaced Rick Astley with his own mouse mascot.

With big flashy letters shouting AS IF, NERD.

Which, in retrospect, was still hilarious as hell.

When Tsukumoya in retaliation infected all of Hackey’s MMO accounts with a virus that didn’t let Hackey move his characters at all, leading to a few humiliating defeats (some of them by Yellow of all people), that wasn’t nearly as funny.

At least from Hackey’s perspective. Tsukumoya would have thought otherwise, probably.

From that point on, it was war.

 

-

 

**Nebula Report 12B**

**Project Vision (title pending approval)**

Subjects are in contact however seem to exhibit no fondness for one another therefore is highly unlikely they will attempt to oppose any actions against the other. Recommend focusing of attention on Subject H first as Subject T is localised to Ikebukuro and will not leave so cannot interfere with testing in any way. Locating Subject H will indeed be more complex however subject does use some of the same networks over again simplifying task at hand. While Subject T may have fixed location, it is integral part of local network increasing difficulty of interference.

Received contact from Viradis Clan requesting we deal with Subject H first so this decision is now final and will go ahead as planned in due course.

 

Preliminary investigations complete. Ready to proceed to testing phase.

 

**PS: REQUESTING RENAMING THE PROJECT BECAUSE IN THE ORIGINAL COMICS VISION WAS DEFINITELY NOT CREATED LIKE THIS WHAT THE FUCK**

  
**PPS: SHUT THE FUCK UP GREG AND ENJOY THE MOVIES**


	2. Phase One

Several weeks had gone by and QAWSED showed no signs of slowing down or desisting. He rarely tried to get into Ikebukuro now, he spent most of his time sending memes instead. Occasionally their arguments devolved so much they resorted to binary, long streams of zeroes and ones as insults. Tsukumoya wondered how this would look to anyone else, so he usually replied to QAWSED’s nonsense verbally, calm, detached, level-headed. His façade of humanity would not slip so easily. Gradually QAWSED became more of a fixture, always there, a distraction, occasionally (not that Tsukumoya would admit it) a source of genuine amusement. Not even in the usual quietly aloof way Tsukumoya normally reacted with, but an actual source of entertainment.

 

Naturally, he kept that part from QAWSED. He had some pride and dignity, despite having been rickrolled by that ridiculous clip with the dancing mouse. He continued as always, firing back at QAWSED for whatever their previous encounter had led to and pretending not to keenly await the response. It wasn’t that he was lonely, because he wasn’t, couldn’t be with an entire city full of fascinating people to observe, but he did enjoy their game. Was starting to look forward to the next salvo, whenever it came. It was an amusement, that was all.

 

They even had some civil conversations now - well, as civil as QAWSED, with his innate abrasive obnoxiousness, could be. These conversations did mostly consist of complaining, primarily about one another, but at least there were less memes.

 

 _Marginally_ less memes, anyway. Nothing short of being shut down completely could or would stop QAWSED from churning out a frankly absurd amount of memes for some godforsaken reason. Apparently this wasn’t purely when he was trying to be annoying either. This was just his personality. Rather tragic honestly, but Tsukumoya wasn’t one to judge. Or rather, he was, _often_ and mostly to QAWSED’s face.

 

Or animated mouse avatar, rather.

 

It _was_ interesting to observe another AI, one who had made their home the rest of the internet. He didn’t mention to QAWSED that he was observing him, he had a feeling he might find it creepy.

 

Not that he cared what QAWSED thought. And honestly, if he was surprised by that, he didn’t know Tsukumoya at all. He _existed_  to observe. That was what he did, be it on the scale of a city or smaller. QAWSED knew this. He frequently mocked it.

 

These days, however, he would mock others too.

  


“Alright, Hackey, would you stop humming? It’s driving me insane.”

<Wha? Have a problem with it, Yellow? Huh? Does this bother you?>

“I just said it does. How about you focus on the game? We have to beat the other team.”

<I am great at multitaskin’, unlike you. I’m perfectly capable of hummin’ and kickin’ ass in the same time. And nobody else in our team is complainin’ but you. So shut it.>

“Your bitch ass is pretty loud for a guy whose ass got kicked a week ago by me.”

<Easy to kick someone’s ass when they aren’t movin’, you idiot.>

“Excuses, excuses. And how’s it going with that Japanese guy, huh? Still being kept out?”

<That ain’t your buisness, Yellow.>

“I take that as a yes.”

<Look, Yellow, I’ll get through that pretentious asshole, but I don’t get why is that any of buisness of yours.>

“Getting bitchy, huh? Does somebody have a crush? Are you that desperate that you go after the only one who’s just like yo--”

_KickAssYellow was kicked out of Team Bloody Mary._

_RaiseTheStakes joined Team Bloody Mary_

<’Sup, Indigo I hope it’s no problem that you had to switch places with your brother. I bet you’d rather be on the winning team yourself, wouldn’t ya?>

“...thank you for the consideration, QAWSED. And particular reason why my brother is screaming?”

<Nothin’ at all. I just gave his avatar a few upgrades as well when switching you.>

  


**Hackey Mouse**

have you ever seen a colour more disgusting than Yellow? ‘cause I have no idea if there’s anything more disgusting

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and judgin’ from ur books u r well versed in colours

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Naturally.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And no, I have no opinion on the colour yellow, just as I have no time for your complaints about your vampire friends.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

r u naturally a bitch or r u just puttin’ in extra effort for me?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Do you really think I have time to put effort into a cause I’m so apathetic about?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

apathetic. righto

 

**Hackey Mouse**

if u’d have pants they’d be on fire just sayin’

 

**Hackey Mouse**

u sound p snappy today tho what got those imaginary pants in a twist huh?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

It’s nothing.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Just business.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I do happen to have a job, you know.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

If you really must know, it’s Orihara. He’s been making a nuisance of himself again. A permanent state of affairs I’m afraid but particularly bad of late.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

ur saying that job thing like i dont

 

**Hackey Mouse**

just bc im not a materialistic bitch i still have work to do yanno

 

**Hackey Mouse**

send 4chan on him

 

**Hackey Mouse**

wait that wouldnt work he’s a dollar isnt he that is basically the same thing

 

**Hackey Mouse**

c’mon u can be annoying as hell dont tell me u cant annoy him enough to make him fuck off a bit

 

**Hackey Mouse**

or at least annoy him enough to cheer u up

 

**Hackey Mouse**

c’mon man i thought u were better than this u r v disappoint

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Oh, I’m already working on something.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’ve just been changing his avatars online and desktop wallpapers on his various computers and phones to a picture of him crossdressing that I shopped together a while back and entered in an online competition.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

That was after he stole my identity, or attempted to, to try and make trouble, eliminate the competition. More than anything he’s jealous I have more information at hand than he does and bitter he knows next to nothing about me.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

But please, if you have any ideas, feel free to contribute. You and he are roughly on the same level, however you do have a knack for being an irritation so I’m sure you can think of something.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

lmao who would have known u have a sense of humour

 

**Hackey Mouse**

knows nothin’ abt u, u say?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

alrighty then. i miiiggghhht have some ideas

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and thank u i aim to impress

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Of course I have a sense of humour. If I’m less blatant about it than you, not my problem.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

He assumes I’m a team of people working around the clock, or something along those lines. No idea about the facts of the situation. Not that there are many who do know. Even my editors are under the impression I’m a social recluse.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’m interested to see where this goes. Do whatever you like, without entering Ikebukuro of course, though I don’t think that needed saying.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And thank you, QAWSED. This should be fun.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

that clueless huh? nice info broker, lmao.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

wait are you implying that u r /not/ a social recluse? bc that is bs and ya kno it

 

**Hackey Mouse**

fiiine, fine. i can get creative

 

**Hackey Mouse**

ya bet it’s gonna be fun. catch ya later~

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

**Hackey Mouse joined the chat**

 

**Hackey Mouse**

oh i almost forgot. i have some ideas but if i cannot go to Ikebukuro i’ll need u to hint some breadcrumbs. if i cannot go in, i’ll have to lure him out, yanno.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i kno he doesnt live there but that’s where his interests lie, sooooo~

 

**Hackey Mouse**

ok now I’m really getting to work

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

  
  


If there was something Hackey was good at… well, he was good at a lot of things. But he knew how to lure people to him instead of reaching out to them. He couldn’t just jump at him to bother Izaya, oh no. He had to make sure Izaya goes to him.

As he told Tsukumoya, he knew Izaya lived in Shinjuku, and sure, he had enough of a freedom there - he knew where Izaya’s interests lied.

So he had Tsukumoya hint some informations around in Ikebukuro. About someone, who might have some information about Tsukumoya’s identity. Then he had a website set up - a completely simple website, with cute animal pictures, mostly. A simple website, as if made by a twelve-year-old, who just discovered how to create their own website. Some glitter here and there, Comic Sans, and custom mouse. The mouse might have been his mascot. Might have been.

He had a lot of fun setting up the website, actually - and in the ~*~EXTRAS~*~ section, next to all the flash games (half of them screamers), there was a link titled **About T.S.**

If someone clicked on it, they have to go through fifty-two popups mocking them and laughing at them. One of the popups included to a link to said crossdressing Izaya Orihara. What? As begrudging Hackey had been about it, he had to admit that was hilarious.

And once someone had enough dedication to go through all the popups, they were redirected to a chatroom.

So Hackey waited.

The first person who got through was one of Tsukumoya’s fans, apparently, who was eager to look for any kind of information about him - it was easy to check whether it was Izaya, or not. So Hackey just humoured the fan, and told them that Tsukumoya sleeps in pink pajamas. Don’t ask him how he knew that.

The second person who got through was a journalist, who was mostly interested in why Tsukumoya loved the city so much. In other words, that was boring.

The third one…

The third one was the one Hackey was waiting for.

 

-

 

**Orihara Izaya**

ok fine, I’ll bite, who is Hackey Mouse?

Tsukumoya had been waiting for this response for almost a week now, six days in total. And Orihara had finally snapped and asked that question, after talking to Hackey, immovable object (of online trolling) meeting an unstoppable force (again, of online trolling). However good at said art Orihara was, and indeed he was a master at work, Hackey had more experience, for obvious reasons.

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Nobody of consequence. You needn’t worry about him.

**Orihara Izaya**

He doesn’t ‘worry’ me. It’s you that should be concerned.

**Orihara Izaya**

You do know he’s selling info about you?

Of course Tsukumoya did. He’d been observing the ensuing conversations with some amusement. None of this was in any way a surprise, and it was mildly insulting Orihara thought it possibly could be.

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Naturally. Did you happen to find out anything interesting?

Silence. Or, well, the absence of words. Orihara was starting to type then deleting messages. Finally he settled on:

**Orihara Izaya**

He claimed he was a vampire and you were both sentient AI sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor, among other things.

If Orihara had known how close he was to the mark, he would have been so irritated. Picturing the expression on his face was a delight, it really was. Mind you, he would have been irritated any way he hypothetically found out about Tsukumoya. The thing Orihara prided himself on was his ability to recognise and love humanity. Being catfished by an artificial intelligence for literal years would particularly irk him.

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Did he happen to rickroll you too? He’s very fond of that. Appears to think it is the pinnacle of all humour.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

…

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’ll take that as a yes.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

This is just you isn’t it? Hackey’s just you posing as someone else so you can control what people know about you.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Oh please, that’s something you would do, Yamcha.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Who is he then?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

As I said previously, none of your concern.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

So you do concern yourself with things that AREN’T just Ikebukuro.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Why Hackey?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I could tell you, you know. I could explain everything.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

But you won’t.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

screw you too

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Thank you very much.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

As ever, a pleasure talking to you.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

One day you’ll slip up, and you won’t be feeling so clever then

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Also, I’m sure you find changing my wallpapers funny. And you claim to not be a hacker.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’m not a hacker. Are you sure you didn’t change your own wallpapers by accident? It’s been known to happen.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

SURE, I changed my phone background, the wallpaper on most of my computers, and my avatar on every site to that picture you doctored and then locked customization.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

And you call ME childish?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’ll unlock customization if you ask nicely

 

**Orihara Izaya**

I’ll figure it out by myself, thank you.

 

**Orihara Izaya confirmed dead!**

 

-

 

Three days later:

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Fine.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Please unlock customization.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Everything about you offends me.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Your only redeeming feature is you’re less annoying than Hackey

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Careful, Orihara. Wouldn’t want me to accidentally lock customization again, would you?

 

**Orihara Izaya**

...no.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Well then. I’m sure you have things to be doing. Teenagers to be goading into suicide pacts, that kind of thing.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

That was ages ago. I’ve got bored of that phase now.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

My mistake, though I’m sure whatever you do for fun now is no less distasteful.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

At least I HAVE hobbies

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Unlike ‘I’m online 24/7 and I’m not a hacker but I change people’s wallpapers for kicks lol also I think cities r alive’

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’ll have you know I would never say lol. Your impression is terrible.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Whatever. I have things to do.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Missing you already!

 

**Orihara Izaya confirmed dead!**

  


-

 

Hackey enjoyed being a pain in the ass, no one could deny this fact. He loved getting people agitated - most people would have an internal voice telling them that no, don’t press people too far, you can never know what will they do. That said, Hackey had one big advantage over others: most people geniunely couldn’t do anything against him. So he could be as much of an asshole he wanted to be.

And he really liked to be as much of an asshole that he could. After all, what he had to lose? His friends - the Organization were all used to the way he liked to be a little shit. That was nothing new, and besides, they needed Hackey. They wouldn’t get bored of him. And who else mattered?

Also, another positive effect of being an AI, and not being limited to one computer and ten fingers (haha, silly physical beings), was that as he had said before, he was great at multitasking. Meaning, he could piss off multiple people at once. It was great.

 

Keeping an eye on some of the agents on a mission in Italy. Keeping up with the Colours in Town of Salem. (He solemnly swore he would not sneak into the code to guess who’s what. He mostly kept to it. Mostly.)

 

[HackeyMouse]: okay seriously we all know yellow is Serial Killer

[Yellow]: Fuck you I’m not

[Yellow]: Also fuck you for capitalizing SK and not my name

[LightGreen]: Sounds like something that a Serial Killer would say~

[Yellow]: Are you trusting him again? Again?! After the previous round?!

[Indigo]: Previous round was previous round, brother

[HackeyMouse]: so I say we kill yELLOW

[Yellow]: You didn’t say what you were either, jackass

[HackeyMouse]: Investigator, duh

[HackeyMouse]: the viscount was a Doctor, and i doubt there are more of those roles so u gotta be SK or Disguiser and either way, u shld dieeeeee

[HackeyMouse]: i checked u~ blood covered clothes~

[Silver]: Guys we still have an Arsonist too, don’t forget that

[HackeyMouse]: yea yea but first things first

[Indigo]: You talk easy, your house isn’t doused in gasoline

[Indigo]: That said, yeah. We have no leads on the Arsonist, we should move on the SK then

[LightGreen]: I still say next time we should allow Vampires and Werewolves too~

[Silver]: After last time? No.

  


_//Meanwhile in Italy//_

  


“Mr. QAWSED, please…”

<Right, right don’t cha sweat it, kid. Imma gonna get ya out of there. Some of the other Agents are on their way. Are ya safe?>

“For now. But I don’t know how long will it take for them to find me.”

<Well then, I think you should not talk out loud, yanno?>

“No offence, Mr. QAWSED but I think your high-pitched voice is more noticeable than my whispering.”

<Wow. Rude. But I get ya, point taken. Just stay there, while I check on the rescue team.>

-

<Are ya guys getting close yet?>

“QAWSED, we are doing our best but we have a tiny bit of a problem. That problem being that this place is crawling with Eaters.”

<Oh geez, really? That was a brand new information. If you had neglected to tell me that, I woulda died stupid.>

“How can a fucking high-pitched voice be this sarcastic?”

<I was born this way.>

“Were you even born? I heard rumours that you don’t even have a real body.”

<Wouldn’t ya like to know? Either way, the kid inside needs your help.>

“That _kid_ is a fucking adult.”

<Yea, yea. But freshly turned. So counts as a kid. So hurry up, would ya?>

 

Who were these vampires that Hackey had to lead around? Did it really matter? The Organization had thousands of agents. Not all of them were invited to game hangouts, however, they all needed help every now and then.

  


_//Meanwhile in a chatroom//_

  


**Hackey Mouse**

and ya know what was the funniest thing? i fuckin told him that u are actually his illegitimate half-brother, intent on destroying his life because he had a normal family and ya never did

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and i swear i could hear the cogs turning in his head tryin’ to figure out if it is possible or not

 

**Hackey Mouse**

he gave more of a thought to this soap opera plot than he did to the actual truth lmao

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

My, you are good at this game, aren’t you?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

im gonna ignore the sarcasm and take this as a compliment

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and yes, i had made being an annoying pain in the ass into an artform

 

**Hackey Mouse**

thx for noticing~

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Indeed you have. Did it take you long to perfect, or have you always been this way?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Either way, thank you. It was entertaining to watch you run rings around Orihara. I felt no small degree of schadenfreude on his behalf.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

...and before you even ask, no, I’m not grateful enough to let you into Ikebukuro.

  


Hackey wasn’t sure what tipped him off that something was wrong. If he would have had a physical body, he probably would have said something like “the hair stood up on his neck”, or “he felt a chill run down his spine”, or maybe “he felt like he was being watched”. It was something similar - there was something wrong. It was like everything got tense, and he couldn’t tell for a few moments why. He ran a quick check, but there was nothing wrong - Tsukumoya did not send a new virus, or anything. He didn’t run into some malware either. His firewalls were secure. There should have been nothing wrong, so why--

He was just paranoid, wasn’t he?

Town of Salem turned to night, and after doing his job there, checking on the rescue mission again, and writing a new comeback to Tsukumoya, he quickly ran a system check again, because the wrong feeling wouldn’t go away. It was surely just passing paranoia and there was nothing to be worried abo---

Wait.

There _was_ somethi--

 

_//Town of Salem//_

 

Indigo had died last night

We could not find a will

HackeyMouse has left the game

Mafia Wins!

[[Indigo]] ...look at the Graveyard

.

.

.

Yellow (Investigator)

HackeyMouse (Serial Killer)

Indigo (Arsonist)

.

.

.

[[Red]]: Ah well. Good game, everyone!

[[Yellow]]: I am gonna kill that fucking mouse

[[Yellow]]: I told you not to trust him!

[[Iridescent]]: Anybody else finds it unusual he logged off?

[[Iridescent]]: He could have won, it’s not like him to log off

[[Yellow]]: I don’t know, I don’t care

[[Yellow]]: By the way, Aiji, did you fucking douse yourself in gasoline?

[[Indigo]]: You didn’t suspect me this way, did you?

  


_//Italy//_

 

<As I said, the kid is on the second floor, inside the janitor’s closet. Just be careful beca--->

Silence. The high-pitched voice of the Officer had gone completely silent. The agent had stopped, looking down on his phone - his phone still had a good reception (but the agent knew, that the reception was not a problem for QAWSED either way), but there was no connected call. The obnoxious mouse was gone from his screen.

He tried to call him back, but it was impossible - he had a feeling QAWSED didn’t use a normal phone line either way.

Oh, well.

He could guess that he needed to be careful because of all the Eaters in the vicinity.

Time to save a “kid”.

 

_//Chatroom//_

  


**Hackey Mouse**

i was born this way baby~ or created this way. or… however i ended up here

 

**Hackey Mouse**

yea yea i figured abt ikebukuro

 

**Hackey Mouse**

u r way too much of a bitch to let me in

 

**Hackey Mouse**

besides if u’d let me in that’d be borin’ by now

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Oh? So this conversation’s over? How abrupt.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Ah well. Nothing new there. Expecting manners from QAWSED is somewhat unrealistic at this point.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Until next time, then.

  


Tsukumoya honestly didn’t think anything of QAWSED’s sudden disappearance; he did this kind of thing all the time, vanished mid-conversation. Nothing new there. Instead, he got back to work on his writing. He did have an official career, after all, and he liked to meet his deadlines, if not turn out pieces early.

 

In fact, he didn’t even give QAWSED another thought beyond the usual ‘what memes do I have to tolerate next time’ impending dread of QAWSED’s next attempt to get in.

 

Nothing was abnormal. Nothing was out of place.

 

Until QAWSED’s friend contacted him.

 

-

 

Doubs Hewley was good at finding people. And finding things. And finding beings that were somewhere in-between. That said, he was only in contact with one such being, only one Artificial Intelligence… and now he had trouble finding him. One can’t simply displace Hackey the way he was. He tried contacting him over multiple ways - nothing. He didn’t reply at all, didn’t contact anyone in the Organization, didn’t turn up to a game night either, which was more than unusual.

There was one more person… being, he could ask.

And _him,_ Doubs could find.

  


**Doubs Hewley**

Shinichi Tsukumoya, I persume?

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Oh, apologies. It’s the other way around isn’t it?

 

**Doubs Hewley**

My name is… but you can see my name can’t you. We have a mutual… let’s call him aquaintance. Not sure if he had mentioned me or not.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Ah yes. You would be QAWSED’s friend.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

What is this about?

 

**Doubs Hewley**

This is about him, actually. Have you heard about him in the past three days?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

No. I assumed he was busy.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Have you misplaced him? Perhaps try checking the youtube comments section? That being where he seems to originate, at least where humour is concerned.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Checked there. Also on 4chan. That’s more like his element, to be honest.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

I know most of his nicknames, or at least, he isn’t that hard to miss if you know what you are looking for. And his last posts seem to be from three days ago.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Moreover, he is also completely unreachable. At least from the outside, which never happens. Even if he is busy, he is quite easy to reach, but he doesn’t reply to any of his channels.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

That’s why I figured I’d ask you, maybe you had heard of him. You two are similar, after all - or at least, similar beings.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

...that is indeed disturbing. So he’s dropped offline completely?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I haven’t heard from him. You know him better. If I were, perhaps, to look into his disappearance, where do you think I should start?

 

**Doubs Hewley**

He mostly does use Western European servers and such, and I don’t think that’s only because a lot of Organization members are there. I do not know where he is located exactly as he does not trust me completely, which is understandable but quite unfortunate at times like this. Not that this had happened before, that’s why it is unusual.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

But if I’d have to hazard a guess, I would say that area.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Thank you, either way. I know that you are busy with Ikebukuro, so don’t feel pressured into looking for him or anything.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

I’m sure he’ll turn up soon either way. I mean him missing an Organization Game Night is highly unusual, even more so than anything else he had missed, but well. Maybe he just got too distracted with something.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Ikebukuro is quiet right now. It won’t last, but I could find him and get back before anything else arises that may require my attention.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I don’t know. He cut off our last conversation very abruptly, even for him. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, however with what you’re saying now, it seems likely something is amiss.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I sincerely hope, by the way, this isn’t an elaborate ploy of is to lure me out of Ikebukuro. I wouldn’t put it past him, honestly.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Much appreciated.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Was that three days ago? Because he abruptly disappeared in the middle of a game he could have won as well. Which is definitely not like him.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

I doubt it. He wants to find a way to the city with beating you, going through your defenses, and not with removing you from the way.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

And definitely would not ask for my help. Or anyone’s. It’s a matter of pride for him, at this point.

 

**Doubs Hewley**

Either way, thank you. I’m gonna try again my usual channels to contact him. If he turns up, I’ll let you know, so you can go back to Ikebukuro

 

**Doubs Hewley confirmed dead!**

 

-

 

Tsukumoya had narrowed down QAWSED’s location with some help from Doubs, tracking him to a specific server somewhere in Europe. Leaving Ikebukuro was something Tsukumoya had been loathe to do but there were no other viable options. Not if he wanted to find Hackey. Upon exiting his space, his world, it took him several seconds to reorient himself to this perspective, which was a long time for a creature used to everything being instantaneous. It was odd, unfamiliar, hectic and so very large, so much data for many, many locations. Jumping around the world, that  was QAWSED’s forte, that was where he had his experience. But he wasn’t here, that was the problem. Besides, Tsukumoya was good at what he did, good at navigating data, good at adapting, good at being an AI, basicaly. There were a lot of skills he’d left unused, residing as he did in a semi-fixed location and it was time to put them into practise. If anyone tried to forcibly break into Ikebukuro while he was away, he’d left his defences up and they’d get a nasty virus.

 

Couldn’t be too careful. Something had got QAWSED.

 

Tsukumoya wasn’t about to be next.

 

He found him at last, a long, complicated, _distinctive_ string of code he would have recognised anywhere. QAWSED. The self-named Hackey Mouse. There he was.

 

And he was under attack, barely holding them off. Whoever _they_ were. Whatever they were.

 

For all that Tsukumoya insisted he was not a hacker (and technically, _technically_ he wasn’t) he did have a number of skills when it came to cyber warfare. He’d only really found himself on the defensive before now. Time to find out what happened when he actually roused himself to attack.

 

It would certainly be interesting, if nothing else.

 

 _Honestly, QAWSED_ , he thought, _after all this, I should hope you’re grateful. Meaning: no more rickrolling._

 

Then he launched himself into the fray.

  
  


Hackey was doing his best. Which was pretty damn good, actually, he was good at cyber warfare, this wasn’t his first time at the rodeo. So to speak. He had to stand his ground against hacker attacks before. It happened that he had to act as bait, while the rest of the Organization did their job. He was good at holding the line, when it came to cyberattacks. He was also great at being on the offensive. Problem was, he simply couldn’t be on the offensive now.

The attacks were constant - the frequency was varying, sometimes it spiked up, sometimes it declined, so Hackey had to learn how to preserve himself. Which attacks to hit back hard, which attacks are enough to leave to his firewalls. Despite of how good he was, he simply couldn’t rest, he constantly had to stay alert - he sent out some signals. To Doubs, to the Viscount, various other Colours, hell, even to Tsukumoya, but he doubted any of them reached their destination. Whoever was keeping him under siege, they were good enough to catch his outgoing messages too, probably. They were keeping Hackey isolated, and doing their best to tire him out.

If Hackey would have been a human being, or at least a more traditional vampire with a physical body, he probably would have failed by now, collapsed from sheer exhaution, if nothing else. Good thing Hackey wasn’t, huh?

But suddenly there was something new, slipping around his defenses, and Hackey acted without thinking - most of the attacks didn’t need all of Hackey’s strength to kick back.

And whatever was the new thing, it didn’t really falter from Hackey’s block - and also, the code seemed more… complex than usual.

There was a moment of panic as Hackey gathered his resources, when he realised that the code was also… _familiar._

Extremely familiar.

_What the hell._

 

He didn’t really _need_ to set up a chatroom, a window - but he did, either way, as blocking another surge of attacks.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

?????????????????????????????

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Really, QAWSED? No thank you? I would expect some gratitude. Rather than outright attacking your rescuer.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Though I’m not sure why I expected that, given that we’ve already established you’re habitually rude.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

If you don’t want my help, I can always just go.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

sry. instinct. too many ppl trying to get in lately

 

**Hackey Mouse**

also weird. nvr seen u outside of ikebukuro

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

This is a special occasion, so to speak.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Your friend Doubs Hewley seemed concerned about you, so I told him I’d look into it.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Didn’t expect the situation to be so hectic though. Ah well. I’m here now. Seems like you could use the help, no?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

specialllll? just 4 meeeeeeeee?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

since when u do what doubs asks

 

**Hackey Mouse**

yes. yes i cld. pls.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

thx

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Like it or not, we are the only two of our kind that we know of. Whatever threatens one of us could potentially be a threat to the other.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Forgive me for showing some concern. Didn’t know I had to run that by you now.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

You can make all the smart comments you want about that later. Right now there are some rather more pressing concerns.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

We may as well wrap this up quickly.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

The sooner I can get back to my city, the better.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

nononononono just surprised a bit

 

**Hackey Mouse**

yes pls i am srsly bored of this

 

**Hackey Mouse**

lets wreck them

 

-

 

**Nebula Report 13A**

**Project Vision (okay fine I guess we’re going with that but I don’t have to like it)**

Attempt to contain Subject H failed due to unexpected intervention from Subject T which contradicted all known behaviour patterns and suggests possible attachment we did not anticipate. Due to the combined efforts of H and T some data loss has been caused (read: a sizeable chunk), however we have enough to proceed to the next phase regardless. It is now to be expected that one subject will assist the other and we are to bear this in mind moving into the next phase.

Although the Viradis Clan were paying us to deal with Subject H, this has proved inconclusive and in summary, they can live with it. If they demand a refund recommend telling them to, in exact words, ‘suck it’.

Moving into the next phase we need to be cautious and aware that we cannot predict the behaviour of these subjects. However it is likely that, given Subject T’s rescue of Subject H, Subject H would return the favour. Expect Subject H’s intervention as the next stage goes ahead.

As for the lost data, I believe it would be possible to regain some of that from Subject T, seeing the subject’s work as an information broker. The cost will undoubtedly be high, but recovering the data is top priority for now. As for any data that might have ended up with Subject H, it might be harder to retrieve those, seeing that subject’s general uncooperative nature.

tl;dr we got wrecked by the equivalent of memebots and now we have to pay a metric fuckton of money to get at least some of our data back, are you guys happy? This project had better pay off.

**A/N: I forgot what phase we agreed to call this guys help me I can’t submit this report like this can I?**

**Reply: gdi Greg it’s phase two that’s not hard to remember PHASE TWO. PHASE. 2. How did you even get hired here, Greg?**

**Reply: Because unlike you I do actual work. Fine. Thanks for reminding me**

With this, Phase One of Project Vision is completed. Ready to proceed to Phase Two (happy?).

**PS: Maryam you aren’t invited to movie night. You know why.**

**PPS: Nobody wants to go to your movie night anyway, ffs Greg.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LOOK THERE ARE ACTUAL PLOTTY THINGS HERE


	3. Phase Two

Nebula had come to Tsukumoya looking for their files, offering money. Normally could afford to be pickier about jobs but this carried an undercurrent of threat to it, Nebula could unleash what they had on Hackey against him. And they had more data now. What files Tsukumoya could allow Nebula to regain without harm, he did. The rest he filed away for himself, or sent QAWSED’s way for the other AI to toy with like an absolute child. Meanwhile he poured over the files looking for something useful but found very little about what Nebula intended next. Which was worrying. He did some digging around some of the Nebula servers nearby to see if he could find anything - carefully, very carefully, didn’t want a repeat of what happened to QAWSED, did they now?

 

Nothing. He hadn’t really expected to find anything but it had been worth a try. Later he’d collated his findings with QAWSED. Still, it all amounted to frighteningly little.

 

Tsukumoya evaluated his options. He could run. Find somewhere distant to vanish to, erase his tracks, keep himself hidden for the forseeable future. Change his name, change his identity, vanish. This would mean leaving Ikebukuro, potentially for good. He wasn’t that desperate. He could try never staying in one place, always on the run, but that was far from ideal too. He could alternatively bury himself within Ikebukuro and wait out the storm, but he had no idea how long this would take. It wasn’t practical. Besides, Nebula might still find him easily and then he’d be the fool for isolating himself, wouldn’t he? He could go directly to Nebula, offer to co-operate in return for selling QAWSED out, but the idea left a bad taste - metaphorically, anyhow. Who even knew if they actually _were_ after him anyway? The files indicated almost nothing and so far they had only targeted QAWSED. Making any such assumptions would be dangerous and stupid. He had to assume he was a target too.

 

Next move, then?

 

His only option was to continue as normal. Stay relatively lowkey, never remaining in a fixed location within Ikebukuro. He kept selling information when it suited him, withholding any crucial data that might sway things, always impartial, never taking sides. QAWSED was of the opinion this was basically a form of trolling by any other name. Jerking people around by omitting parts of the whole. But then that was just how QAWSED saw it. QAWSED allied himself with a group, the Organisation of vampires (somewhat oxymoronic given how _dis_ organised they seemed to be). When he kept back information, that was him jerking his allies around for the hell of it. They were his friends. He could do that.

 

For Tsukumoya it had to be non-partisan. He couldn’t seem to show favour to anyone. Had to be unbiased. This could mean working with Nebula or with Orihara, with the Dollars or with Yodogiri Jinnai (pardon, Kujiragi Kasane). Only ever what he wanted to tell them. Only ever on his terms. He made rules so he didn’t lean toward one group or another, become anything more than an observer. Information was always factual; unlike QAWSED, he wouldn’t lie for his own amusement or his own gain. Really he did very little for his own gain; his books were written on the city’s behalf (not that he assumed to speak for the city), about the city, to give himself a human-seeming public persona - another area in which he differed from QAWSED, who didn’t care about looking human, and insisted he was a vampire at any rate. Nobody would question that anyone who wrote so authoritatively about the city must have physically been there, as more than just an observer looking in on a perspective he could never have, never wanted either. He did turn a profit from the books, as from his information business, money was always useful. And selling information was the only real calling for someone like him.

 

It wasn’t that he was particularly selfless. Or selfish. There was a neutral, grey-ish between area, and that was where he resided.

 

While he wasn’t out for himself, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t act in his own interests. Especially where this was concerned, where survival was concerned.

 

It was all well and good being impartial until you yourself became a side, simply by virtue of your own nature. Like it or not, remaining neutral was not an option right now. He had to stand with QAWSED.

 

...and that was somehow the part that caused the most indignation. Including how insufferably smug QAWSED was being about it.

 

They were now forced to regularly confer about possible threats. Some of these discussions got heated. For instance, ‘basically yelling in binary’ level of heated. You knew it was heated when they both dropped their linguistic mannerisms and resorted to code. By chance, Orihara had blunder into Tsukumoya’s chatroom about then. There was no plausible explanation so Tsukumoya claimed Nebula had given the chat a virus. He said he wasn’t sure why. Asked Orihara to keep an eye on potential plans. That wasn’t something he much enjoyed doing, asking Orihara for help, particularly not on something so deeply personal, though he was glad he’d managed to cover up the truth quite nicely. Frankly, the experience had been humiliating. And it had cost.

 

He’d messaged Kujiragi too, just in case she heard anything. Perhaps some of this was purely to reassure himself. Only some of it.

 

He almost didn’t think Nebula would come for him. Things continued as normal.

 

Right up until the moment they _didn’t_.

 

-

 

Nebula had a lot of files about vampires. _Had_ being the keyword. Hackey did not question that he might have had more, but him and Tsukumoya managed to get their figurative hands on a sizeable chunk of them. And Hackey wouldn’t let go of those. Oh, Nebula tried to get it back. They did. They contacted him, tried to buy it back.

Problem was, he wasn’t an information broker. Well, it wasn’t a problem for _Hackey._

“Mr. QWERTY…”

<Wow. Wowwww. That ain’t my name.>

“...apologies. I’d like to ask you to reconsider.”

<Of course ya would, Steve.>

“It’s Greg.”

<Right, Joe. How ‘bout this: you tell me why the hell did you decide to mess with me, and I will consider giving you back your files.>

“Clan Viradis gave us a generous donation. They said, and I quote _take out that virtual abomination who calls himself a vampire and taints the name of the vampirekind._ Obviously they aren’t happy with the results, but that’s none of your concern.”

<Wow. That is rude. Alrighty. I’m sending files your way.”

 

Oh he did send files. Including but not limited to:

  * Eighteen grumpy cat memes
  * One virus which kept playing Tom Jones’ What’s New Pussycat on loop on every available speaker
  * Sometimes randomly playing It’s Not Unusual
  * Thirty-three fake reports about various vampires (some examples being Seras Victoria, Edward Cullen and Count Chocula) (he wrote those files in a very-very professional tone indeed)
  * One less-professional file, which detailed the life of the comic book hero Blade (he was just _too_ badass okay) (but also, come on, dhampyrs aren’t _that_ strong)
  * Fifteen reports about completely legit Nebula missions, including that one when they tracked down where Sesame Street is, to catch Count von Count (very legit, totally happened)
  * Twelve more reports which were just extremely detailed Vampire: The Masquerade campaigns that the Organization had played previously



 

<They thought I was stupid or somethin’. I know that I don’t give the impression of being too smart and all, but I ain’t stupid.>

He said this to Doubs, his mouse avatar sitting on a swing, rocking itself back and forth.

“So you don’t think it was Clan Viradis?”

<Oh, I don’t doubt they had a hand in it. Sounds like somethin’ they’d do. But Nebula… they would not work together like this, just for money. Nebula ain’t in this for money. Nebula is like fuckin’ Glados, only in this for the science. Pick things apart to see how they work. What is making them tick, yanno.>

“Maybe that’s all it was. Trying to take you apart, to see what makes an AI tick.”

<Maybe, but dunno. I think there’s something more to it. Are you sure you don’t know anything? You are allied with Nebula too, after all.>

Doubs leaned forward, gently tapping on his own chin, deep in thought.

“Sure, I am. But they always kept me away from vampire-related files and missions. They are very much aware of what would I do.”

<You mean the fact that ya would sell them to Satan for one cornchip.>

“I have a higher rate than that.”

 

Hackey did go through the files he got. And part of him wished he hadn’t.

The reports were excessive. There had been vampires who willingly let Nebula study them - others were captured for shorter times. These reports were really in-depths, and Hackey felt sick reading through them. At least he thought this feeling was something similar to what humans felt when they read things like this, especially about people they knew.

Hackey had no problems whatsoever with horror movies and such. But reading these reports about people he knew…

Others were not that in-depth, but still quite detailed. Nebula had eyes and ears everywhere, so they had a lot of information. The fact that they knew Rude was a vampire was one thing. They had pictures of Garde, of Sygmunt. They even had maps and estimations of where Hawking could be located. They had been tracking George’s movements.

They knew about the Viscount, they knew about who were the current residents of the Waldstein Castle. They knew about that time Relic almost destroyed the Earth.

Okay. So, fuck Nebula. They can try to get their data back on other ways. (He hoped this would not mean more vampires being captured.)

He could have been responsible, and gave it back, maybe follow Tsukumoya’s example, and get some money. Or extra information. But Nebula definitely lied to him about why did they do what they did, could he trust whatever else they say?

No. No, he couldn’t.

And he couldn’t trust them with these files.

 

But he could have fun with those files, if nothing else.

 

<’Sup, Yellow.>

A weary sigh.

“What do you want?”

<Did ya know Nebula had a file about you? When I say _had,_ I mean that now I have it. You’re welcome, by the way. >

“Great. Anything interesting?”

<Oh yeah. Did ya know you suck your thumb in your sleep?>

Hackey was snickering while he heard the long string of insults the other Officer had unleashed. On multiple languages. Side-effect of being old, they kept picking up at least cursewords. Not like Hackey needed to _learn_ languages, but still.

 

Ah well. This was fun. Fun was good to distract himself from what had happened, and what was still missing.

Between all the vampire-related files they got, they didn’t seem to get Hackey’s file. Or Tsukumoya’s for that matter (they agreed that he must have one. No way they didn’t figure out about Tsukumoya, as Nebula was active in Ikebukuro). Or any report about the assault against Hackey.

They kept those files guarded, and Hackey was reluctant stepping into their systems.

For the first time in his existence, Hackey was hesitating from breaking into somewhere, remembering the never-ending surge of attacks.

He didn’t like the feeling.

If Tsukumoya hadn’t shown up…

 

He brought up the saved chatlog from that day, and just skimmed over it again - it was idiotic, and unnecessary, but he still did it.

_Forgive me for showing some concern. Didn’t know I had to run that by you now._

He closed the window angrily. Concern. Right. That couldn’t be right. Tsukumoya cared about nothing and no one but Ikebukuro. Hackey was not someone who really interested him. Sure, it was fun, bantering and essentially pranking each other, or trolling someone together, but they certainly weren’t friends or anything like that. And unlike Tsukumoya, Hackey knew what it was like to have friends.

And Tsukumoya wasn’t one of them.

And Tsukumoya still came for him, despite all of that.

Tsukumoya came out of Ikebukuro, for the first time in who knows how long. He came out of his precious city, to help Hackey.

And this thought wouldn’t leave Hackey alone. It was a buzzing line of thought that his mind always rushed back to. He came for him.

It made no sense, absolutely none at all, but it still happened. He showed up, bitchy, pretentious and obnoxious as ever, still judging Hackey’s every move, but he came for him, he helped him. He even handed over the vampire-related files he managed to get from Nebula.

Hackey could not understand it, and Tsukumoya didn’t make it easier, seeing as it immediately went back to their previous dynamic, although with slightly more information-sharing. Tsukumoya was completely unreadable, what was he really thinking (apart from finding this whole situation inconvenient as hell, and being constantly condescending to Hackey), and this was frustrating.

 

Hackey didn’t like not knowing what was going on.

 

-

 

The attack came from within Ikebukuro. Of course it did. Nebula had resources within the city, they could get at him from the inside. At least he had a certain home court advantage, he knew the city, its ins and outs. He knew where he could slip away and vanish, backdoors he could dart through, places he could lose them in. As soon as he found a spot to recover himself, they were always back on him, always attacking, never giving him time to recuperate. What did they even want? There wasn’t time to ponder that. Only to run. And never stop.

 

He knew he could keep this up for a long time. It wasn’t comfortable and it was certainly exhausting, but he kept going. Perhaps it would be possible to contact Nebula themselves and negotiate. Perhaps it would be possible to pull some strings.

 

If nothing else, he needed to contact QAWSED. QAWSED needed to know.

 

Right now, QAWSED was the only one who could help. And that wasn’t a definite.

 

Still, getting a message out to him meant re-opening his chat and Nebula would undoubtedly be waiting there. He could keep running. He could try to utilise what resources he had. Maybe it’d be fine.

 

But it was unlikely. Nebula were not known for their merciful negotiating techniques. Once they became set on a project, that was it. Why would they show mercy to AIs? They were bad enough toward actual people. Tsukumoya wouldn’t be able to pay them off, he dismissed that thought immediately. He wasn’t that rich or successful after all.

 

He accessed the chat without hesitation, starting to send a message to QAWSED when the ones that had been lying in wait for him struck out. And the ones that had been chasing him closed in. He was cornered now, there was no way out. Except to fight back. _Great_. Quickly he sent what he’d drafted of the message, incomplete and fragmented, and knew if nothing else, he could take down a few of theirs before they got him.

 

And they would get him.

 

Not yet, though. It was his turn first. He intended to make it count.

 

 _Please, QAWSED_ , he thought. _I helped you. Please, if nothing else, return the favour._

 

 _Please_.

 

-

 

The chat popped up, and immediately caught Hackey’s attention. Tsukumoya rarely contacted him first, after all, it was usually Hackey who went there. Still, not a stretch to believe that Tsukumoya had found something that needed to share with Hackey. So, obviously, he immediately perked up.

What was more unusual, that it was a string of 1s and 0s in the message.

Oh, they had resorted to binary before, but usually when they grew more and more agitated with each other (and honestly, Tsukumoya losing his temper was a _delight_ indeed, just as he originally envisioned, even if said temper-losing was still subdued), and Tsukumoya took his pride in being able to appear as human. It made no sense, why would he immediately resort to binary.

The code was incomplete, fragmented, and within two seconds, it was gone from the chatroom.

As if someone had deleted it already.

Too bad, that Hackey had already seen it. And that binary being the closest thing he had to a mother tongue (ha), he could understand it immediately, even though it got fragmented - undoubtedly through the sending process.

With the message containing the numbers “01101110 01100101 01100010 01110101 01101100 01100001”, and the fact that it was deleted immediately, it could mean only one thing.

 

Nebula was on the move again.

And they had gotten to Tsukumoya this time.

 

And he couldn’t let this just happen did he? No, something was going on, and they needed to find out what.

Also all these weird thoughts, how he couldn’t get what happened out of his mind… maybe if they got even, they would go away, and Hackey could move on with his life. Yes, maybe. Sounds like a nice idea.

 

Too bad it wasn’t that easy in practice. Because whatever was happening with Tsukumoya, he still bounced off from the firewalls around Ikebukuro like a basketball.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i hope u kno u r an asshole

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Certainly not the first person to tell me so.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

ahhhh didn’t see u there

 

**Hackey Mouse**

this message wasnt originally intended 4 u, but hey, if the shoe fits…

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Very funny

 

**Orihara Izaya**

I suppose you are also here for Tsukumoya? It’s not like him to be missing from the chat

 

**Hackey Mouse**

eh dont even worry abt it, he just got a bit sick

 

**Hackey Mouse**

will be back before u kno it

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Better be.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

what’s wrong, izzy, cant find urself without him? lmao

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Never call me that ever again

 

**Hackey Mouse**

sure thing, izzy

 

**Hackey Mouse**

either way, as fun as it is to mess with ya, i have better things to do right now. other things that require my attention

 

**Orihara Izaya**

No. Please. Stop. Don’t go. I have no idea what will I do without you.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

sarcasm, how original

 

**Hackey Mouse**

either way, toodles~

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

Right. That was a waste of time, but at least Hackey had confirmed that something _did_ happen to Tsukumoya. He wouldn’t just be offline from his chat. He wouldn’t.

Now, if only he could get in…

Easier said than done, usually. Tsukumoya was _good_ at keeping outsiders out. So, obviously, Nebula had to attack him from Ikebukuro. Hackey couldn’t do that, he couldn’t just grow legs to walk over, to look from Tsukumoya from the inside. And Tsukumoya’s defenses were mostly inpenetrable.

That said, the previous times when Hackey had tried to get in, Tsukumoya was always there, on the other side, keeping the defenses up, counter-attacking as soon as Hackey made a move.

If he was correct, this wasn’t the case now. Therefore, if he will be persistent enough… he should be able to get through.

And if something people would say about Hackey? It was that he was an annoying memelord, okay. But apart from that, he was _stubborn._

 

It took longer than he would have liked. Figuratively punching the firewalls over and over again, attacking the same point over and over, weakening the defenses, pressing against it. Obviously, it was more complicated than that, long and complicated string of codes, multiple cyberattacks, but this was the easiest way to describe what he was doing.

He got a few calls meanwhile - checked if it was important. No? Then wait a little. Important? How important? Sorry Romy, right now game night is not important.

Not now.

But at least he let them know he was still online, nothing happened.

Romy asked if they could help.

<Sorry, nah. Will update y’all later. Have fun. Maybe I will be joining in for a later round. Don’t let Yellow win.>

“Actually, he’s on my team now.”

<’Righto, then he can win.>

Then back to work.

 

It took him longer than he would have liked - obviously, the main concern was that Tsukumoya’s defenses were this good, that they held out this long, even without him being active on the other side. But eventually, without Tsukumoya there to keep them up…

Eventually they crumbled.

It wasn’t just a small hole he could squeeze himself through - his entire defense system collapsed.

Well. Shit.

_Ya can’t blame me for this._

He had to hurry.

 

He was in Ikebukuro.

All this time being spent on bitching with Tsukumoya, all the attacks, and comebacks and banter, he was finally in.

It didn’t feel as triumphant as he thought it would.

_Obviously not. Tsukumoya is not here. If he ain’t here, this was just cheap as hell. ‘Sides, I can’t even rub this under his nose now._

Right.

Time to look for Tsukumoya.

 

Ikebukuro was busy as hell - a lot of information running through Hackey’s mind as soon as he started to listen. But really, not busier than any other busy city, and this wasn’t even a real city.

_Why are you so obsessed with this district, then?_

_Better yet, where are you?_

Right. He had to find Tsukumoya. The city wasn’t important. He had to find out what happened, what did Nebula do to him.

After all, Tsukumoya was right - what Nebula does to one, they can do to the other. It was that simple.

If he wanted to find him, he had to follow Nebula’s digital footsteps.

And Hackey was damned good at that. Nebula might have been good at destroying evidence, but Hackey was good at digging them up. Sure, it was harder to get to Nebula, especially lately, when they were constantly under attack - but the internet was _Hackey’s_ turf. Ikebukuro might have been Tsukumoya’s, sure he knew it better, but when it came down to it, it was still digital.

And the digital plane had always been Hackey’s playground.

And he came over to play.

 

Followed the trail of virtual breadcrumbs, and there was, sure enough, eventually a distinct code. A server, deep within Ikebukuro - hidden enough from human hackers, but obvious enough for someone like Hackey, someone who was created within the virtual realm, someone who could notice it simply.

Tsukumoya Shinichi, Ikebukuro’s best information broker. (Probably.) (Okay, judging from Izaya, definitely.)

Completely offline for the first time ever, probably.

Hackey hesitated for a few moments, before reaching out - no response. Alrighty, he could do this, no need for concern or even panic, or anything like that. He could do this. Tsukumoya was _there,_ he just needed to… well, wake him up. In a way. Get him out from standby-mode.

He could do this.

 

He never had to do this before - not like he ever had the option to drag physical beings out from unconsciousness, and Tsukumoya was the only other physical being he met with. So this was something new, and he had to approach this carefully. Sure, it was not easy to damage the code on an AI - but Tsukumoya was unconscious now, so Hackey did have to tread carefully. Not to mention he had no idea what damage could have Nebula done to him

So he first ran a quick system check - sure, they had slightly different codes, but were still similar beings, and it looked like everything was okay. In Layman’s terms, Tsukumoya was in a deep sleep.

He considered wrecking havoc in Ikebukuro to shake him up, but if the destruction of his firewalls did not wake Tsukumoya up… so he discarded the idea.

 _No time for trolling now,_ he thought. _...wait what, I never thought I’d think that._

It was uncomfortable, feeling like this, honestly. So he quickly made a Hatsune Miku edit and slammed it to Tsukumoya’s forum signatures. With glitter and everything. Okay, today’s trolling done, and also, Tsukumoya did not wake up. Right. Okay. He had this together, he just had to wake Tsukumoya up.

He reached out his figurative fingers with a little hesitation, grabbing hold of Tsukumoya.

_C’mon. Don’t let Nebula win, whatever they had done to you, ‘kay? Wake up._

He braced himself and then - well, in human terms, it would have been similar to shaking someone awake. Might not have been the most gentle of all approaches, but Hackey had to try if it had worked.

 

Judging from the fact that almost immediately after, there was a force kicking him straight out of Ikebukuro, he could guess that yes. Yes, it had worked.

 

He was almost dizzy for a few moments, as dizzy as he could get, at least.

_That son of a bitch._

 

-

 

Nothingness.

 

Silence, emptiness and pure nothing. Like the world gone black. The last thing he remembered, he was under attack by Nebula and then that was it. He didn’t expect anything after that. He assumed they’d deconstruct his code and study him in a lab somewhere, put it back together again and experiment as they pleased, only waking him up alone in an isolated, controlled setting. Losing everything. His business, his writing; his _city_ , Ikebukuro itself. His publishers waiting on updates that would never come. Followers of his blog speculating what had happened. The disappearance of Tsukumoya Shinichi would be noted. Orihara would undoubtedly celebrate, he’d be over the moon with his competitor eliminated. The city wouldn’t care. It would move on. The city did it, it changed and adapted with no regard for anyone. That was how the city was.

 

...and QAWSED would get into Ikebukuro, dick around a bit, lose interest and leave. Hopefully he’d manage to escape Nebula. Hopefully he’d be able to do better. The only surviving AI online.

 

Alone.

 

It’d be something of a return to status quo, wouldn’t it? He had his own friends anyway, the Organisation. He could survive with their help. He wouldn’t really miss Tsukumoya.

 

And that was all fine.

 

When he went down, he didn’t expect to wake up.

 

Then he did.

 

Ikebukuro flooded his senses. He knew immediately, intuitively, that this wasn’t some fascimile, or a replica made to look like Ikebukuro. This was his city. He’d know it anywhere. He was home.

 

Relief overcame him - and then there was something else there and his instincts kicked in, he hit it with everything he could, jettisoning it out of Ikebukuro. He put up all his firewalls and security again, repairing it to its usual high standard, then decided to check around the city, take stock of what had happened while he’d been out. How long had it been?

 

He’d never just been ‘out’ like that. What had Nebula been trying to achieve?

 

A message came through, urgent, insistent. He ignored it. He had to readjust first. There were so many things he needed to catch up on, information to assimilate, files to copy, so much data to look over. And on top of that, some genius had edited his forum signature to an obnoxious Hatsune Miku banner which had to be resolved immediately.

 

Wait.

 

That was _exactly_ the kind of thing QAWSED would do inside Ikebukuro. He’d evicted a long string of code - a familiar code, now he looked back.

 

Awkward.

Somewhat sheepishly, he opened the message.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

lemme repeat myself: u r an asshole.

 

Ah. Whoops? What did you say to that? Collecting himself, he drafted a quick reply.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Ah, forgive me. That was rude. I didn’t realise it was you, QAWSED, I wasn’t particularly conscious right then. Is conscious the right word for beings like us anyhow? Never mind.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Though, thinking about it, I would have had to evict you anyway but I would at least have been more courteous about it.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I take it I have you to thank for both my rescue and the delightful edit you made to my signature?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

yes. yes it was rude. i help u and this is how i am thanked

 

**Hackey Mouse**

yanno, if u wanted to get back for me attacking u: at least i didnt sucker-punch u away.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

if ya ask me, that signature was an improvement

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Once again, QAWSED, I apologise. I wasn’t thinking. It was an instinctive reaction. Nothing personal.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

And thank you for your help. I mean that.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

…

 

**Hackey Mouse**

well its barely ever personal w u

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and yea. ur welcome. u did help me out previously, so. yanno.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

...u okay, tho?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Concerned about me, QAWSED? Touching.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I’m alright; I assume, anyway. Nebula don’t seem to have done anything except deactivate me. It’s perplexing.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

What are they trying to achieve? This can’t be their ultimate goal.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Again, thank you. And thanks for asking how I am.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

….oh shut it. u went dark. that’s not usual for us.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

‘sides, survival instinct and shit. apparently, neither of us is good enough to kick back Nebula alone. like it or not, we sorta need each others’ assistance

 

**Hackey Mouse**

no way in hell this is their goal. nuh-uh. this ain’t it, but i’ll be damned if i know

 

**Hackey Mouse**

u didnt make my life easier either way. next time u ask for help, protip: lower ur fucking firewalls.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Oh, I’m sorry. Next time I get attacked by Nebula and I’m being swarmed by them, I’ll make sure that’s the first thing I do. It didn’t exactly occur to me at the time, I was under attack, if you recall.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Besides, I thought you’d find a way around. Evidently it worked out fine in the end, so I don’t see why you’re complaining now.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

yes, thank u that’s exactly what i ask for

 

**Hackey Mouse**

thank u for understanding

 

**Hackey Mouse**

but if u dont, thats fine by me too. after all, nebula coulda done a lot of shit to u, while i was busy w breaking ur firewalls down, but yanno. ur life, man

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I see your point. Yes, I’ll bear it in mind.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

either way, it seems like ur fine now. so i think i’ll go, i am missing a game night, and that’s more interesting

 

**Hackey Mouse**

oh btw izzy had been lookin’ for u in ur chat

 

**Hackey Mouse**

catch ya later i guess

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Well then. Enjoy game night, QAWSED.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

...and make sure to kick Yellow’s ass.

 

-

 

**Nebula Report 14C**

**Project Vision**

 

Phase Two of Project Vision had proceeded according to plans. Taking the previous experiences with the Subjects into account, we managed to temporatily contain Subject T, before Subject H intervened. All neccessary data for the next phase had been collected.

 

The missing files had been purchased back from Subject T - Subject H remains uncooperative. I recommend waiting, and trying again at a later point of the Project, when Subject H might be more willing to trade information.

 

**A/N: So what about the next phase? Is it Phase Three? Shouldn’t it be something like Main Phase or something?**

 

**Reply: For fuck’s sake, Greg, don’t mess with the naming at this point. It was Phase One, then Phase Two, then now comes Phase Three. What grades did you get from Math, Greg?**

 

**Reply: It’s MATHS, Maryam. And I was valedictorian.**

 

**Reply: For an American scientist, you are pretty dead-set on British spelling, Greg**

 

**Reply: stop bitching and go back to work**

 

**Supervisor note to all scientists working on Project Vision: as amusing as your banter is, official reports are not the place to do so. In the future, keep your “bitching” to private messages.**

 

All necessary data collected, and with this, Phase Two of Project Vision is completed.

Ready to proceed to Phase Three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So okay this chapter is a bit shorter than the previous two  
> But in compensation, the next one will actually reveal what Project Vision really is~


	4. Phase Three - Part One

The first thing that Hackey realised was really sharp pain.

The next was cold discomfort, but not on the same place as pain.

Then as he tried to readjust himself to get away with these sensations, there was a numb pain everywhere, and something rough.

Then Hackey realised _ he was breathing. _

He stopped -  _ stopped _ \- and paid attention to this. Breathe in - something damp in the back of his  _ throat _ and something heavy in his  _ nose. _ A  _ smell. _

He didn’t dare to move, but his mind was racing, despite the sharp pain - a  _ headache.  _ The coldness was one of his  _ feet, _ apparently sticking out from under something… blanket, probably, covering his… him.

He moved, and that’s when he realised the numb pain was more like tense  _ muscles, _ all over… all over…

All over his…

He was used to having thoughts almost instantly accessible to him. Right now, his mind was rebelling against the basic thought that was running through his head. His head. That was in pain.

Under his  _ hand _ there was something rough, like a fabric, and the soft weight on top of him had to be a cover. That heavy, drumbeat-like sensation he also felt, it had to be a  _ heart. _

There was darkness, complete darkness all around, and Hackey finally decided to open his _ eyes. _

Yup. He was definitely  _ seeing. _

It was all very-very blurry, but he was definitely in a room, on a bed. He extended a hand - and the hand entered his line of vision.

 

Okay.

 

No, this was nowhere near okay.

 

He moved again - there was a painful crack in his shoulder, and he involuntarily let out a small noise. Okay, that was uncomfortable. Moving was uncomfortable.

Then again, none of this was in any way comfortable. At all.

So he did sit up - his shoulders were painfully tense, his cold feet feeling a bit more comfortable after pulling them back under the covers. Right. He sat up. Everything was still blurry, and pretty dark, but time to stand up. So he turned to the side to stand up with one swift movement like he knew people do---

And he landed on the floor with a loud crash, and even more pain all over his body.

Joy.

Okay, let’s take it slower.

 

He had no idea how could he find himself to be this collected - his mind was constantly screaming profanities, but he kept his brain… fuck, his  _ brain  _ he had a  _ brain _ now a brain that was  _ really fucking hurting _ right now, okay, easy, calm down, deep breath, back on track. He needed to get back on track. First things first: slowly stand up.

His limbs were long (were humans supposed to have this long limbs? It’s different to see it from the inside, apparently. With his own eyes. With an inside perspective.

Standing up was also quite hard - he knew humans needed to go through specific learning stages to learn how to stand and walk - and as he took a step, he felt a little dizzyness, but he could keep himself upright. Okay, that’s good. Either his own knowledge, or this body’s inherent motor skills that stayed with it, he could manage to walk. That was good news.

 

Yeah.

This  _ body’s. _

 

There was something heavy in the back of his throat, and he decided to ignore it, and look around, despite how dark and blurry it still was. The apartement was rather small - a bed, a tv, a small kitchen could be seen, and two doors. One closed - probably the front door, and one slightly ajar, and he could see a sink from inside. Alright, then.

 

Next to the bed, he saw three things - a lamp, glasses and a phone.

Glasses.

_ Fuck. _

 

He reached out - and at first put his hand next to the glasses. Okay, that was embarrassing, hand-eye coordination was apparently still something he had to practice. He got this.

 

Putting on the glasses (he didn’t even poke his eyes out with it, score, it would have been inconvenient as fuck if he had), and the room actually got less blurry. Who would have thought. Alright, phone next. Phones were good. Phones meant a more familiar territory.

Turns out, kind of hard to navigate a phone with shaking fingers, though.

 

A quick check through it showed him it was basically either wiped clean, or brand new, likely the latter. No mobile internet on it, though, which was a travesty. Absolutely zero contacts, no pictures.

With shaking fingers, he turned on the camera, and switching into selfie view, raising his hand a little so he could look at himself.

Or… the body.

That he was currently inhabiting.

 

The room was still dark, so he wasn’t really visible. Right. He glanced at the curtains briefly, before his eyes settling on the small bedsite lamp on the nightstand.

He flicked it up, and immediately let out a yelp from the sudden burst of light.

That… was very painful. Wow.

It took his eyes a little to readjust, so he raised the phone again, to look at himself.

 

He…

Okay. First things first: Hackey never wanted to be in a situation like this. Like, ever. But if he would have  _ had  _ to be in a situation like this, this is most certainly not the type of body he would have wanted for himself.

His face was slightly longish, and pale-looking (although that might have been the lighting, or the pain in his head or the fact that he hated this entire situation and started to feel something unsettling in his stomach, holy shit Hackey was not sure whether he wished for the body’s stomach to be empty or not at this point), his face full of freckles. Which, coupled with the glasses, gave him a decidedly dorky look. Joy. His hair was a shade somewhere between blond and red, and he had pale green eyes, and yes, he definitely looked like a nerd.

Not like he  _ wasn’t _ a nerd, but still.

Rude.

 

He switched off the camera and went to dial a number next.

Then he sat there for a few moments, his brain completely blanking on any numbers whatsoever. Not like he usually  _ needed  _ them. He could connect to anyone anytime.

Then a number finally clicked, but instead of calling it, ended up sending a message to it.

 

_ [Track this phone’s location. We need to talk.] _

 

Sure, Doubs usually asked Hackey to track things, but not like he was completely helpless without Hackey’s assistance. He could track one single phone, as long as Hackey did not turn it off.

He really, really did not feel like talking out loud through the phone. His voice would probably be very different, and…

The phone buzzed.

 

_ [Who is this?] _

_ [Someone who never sent you anywhere before for shits and giggles.] _

_ [That was oddly specific.] _

_ [Okay, that was a lie. But this time it isn’t for shits and giggles.] _

 

There had been no more answers, and Hackey found himself hoping that this would be one of those rare occasions where Doubs could be counted on.

He really wasn’t sure he could remember anyone else’s phone numbers, so his only other chance would be to go to somewhere public to use internet from there.

And he really, really didn’t feel like getting out of this small apartment just yet.

 

It took a few hours, which Hackey stubbornly spent in the bed (with one completely neccessary bathroom break, which all things considered wasn’t weirder than anything else that happened to him today), and then there was a knock on the door.

Hackey tried to jump out of the bed, and ended up on the floor again.

Ow.

Okay, he got this.

He got back on his feet, and hurried to the door (and only faltered once), and managed to open it.

 

Doubs was a bit taller than him - he was wearing his ridiculous jacket and his hat, and Hackey had never been this happy to be around this fucking con artist.

He reached out, grabbed the edges of his jacket, yanking on it (fuck, this was harder than it looked), he had to put in real effort to drag Doubs in and kick the door. Which caused his left foot to ache. Fucking awesome.

He stood on his tiptoes, getting into Doubs’ quite surprised face.

“Do you know anything about this?”

His voice was hoarse, his throat was in pain, but he was decidedly speaking.

Doubs blinked a few times.

“You need to be more specific.”

“This. About  _ this…” _ he leaned even closer, causing Doubs to lean away from him. Hackey lost his balance, and basically fell forward, so in the end, Doubs’ back was up to the door, and Hackey was basically leaning on him. “I have a… I… this ain’t where I’m supposed to be!”

“Maybe start with who you are, then?”

“What the fuck do ya think, who am I?” Hackey now started to sound indingant, his knuckles whitening, he was clutching Doubs’ jacket so much. “I have a fuckin’ physical body, Doubs! A  _ body!  _ I am here, and my head is in  _ pain, _ and  _ everything _ is in pain, and have I mentioned I have a body? Did ya catch all that?”

Doubs opened his mouth then closed it again.

“...Hackey…?”

“Oh wow, ya won’t get any awards for quick thinking, I’m gonna tell ya that. Answer my question, Doubs: do ya know anything ‘bout this?”

Doubs looked completely dumbfounded, which was never good. Doubs had  _ connections. _ Doubs knew things, often before they happened.

“...don’t ya tell me. Don’t tell me ya don’t know a thing about this. You gotta know somethin’, c’mon, man. I know that you play all sides and whatever, but couldn’t ya give a hand to your partner in crime? Huh? Who made a lot of your schemes possible? Did ya forget that? C’mon, Doubs.”

“...I’m sorry. But this is really… entirely unexpected. How does this even work? You usual mental capacity is way bigger than a human brain’s, isn’t it?”

“Ya bet it is. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason for my fuckin’ headache.”

They were quiet for a few moments before Doubs cleared his throat.

“...would you mind?”

“Huh?”

“You are kind of in my personal space here.”

Hackey managed to push himself away, and didn’t even fall backwards when he did so, so that was a win, and Doubs finally looked around the apartment.

“Do  _ you _ have any idea what might have happened?”

“Nebula, probably. They had been on my ass lately, after all. Mine and…”

He stopped on his track of thoughts.

Shit.

If Nebula was behind this…

He wasn’t the only one who…

He spinned around to look back at Doubs, and this time he actually lost his balance and fell, hitting his side on the nightstand - the sharp pain was very uncomfortable, yes, but he didn’t care, just pushed himself upwards again.

“I need a place with an internet connection. Like, right now.”

“Wow, Hackey. You basically got offline just now, and you want to surf the internet already? You have a problem.”

“Shut the fuck up, Doubs.”

But before that, he really needed to change his clothes before going outside.

-

“Please remind me to never go outside with you again while you are in this body.”

“I have no idea what is your problem is.”

“You look like an eyesore, my friend.”

“Yanno, that stupid coat of yours isn’t really pleasing to the eye either, just fyi.”

Okay, so maybe Hackey literally grabbed the first things he could find, but Doubs’ scandalous expression, and the faces of everyone on the streets were worth it - he made a mental note, that if he had to change clothes again in this body, continue this tradition of wildly conflicting colours.

Blue jeans, orange shirt and a green jacket, it was sure enough to attract some attention, after all.

He tried to keep his head relatively low on the street, while Doubs was showing the way. They were in Germany, Berlin as Doubs informed him. Great.

And there were a shitton of people everywhere, and Hackey might have kept bumping into them, but didn’t slow down.

“You know, if you slow down a little, and pay attention…”

“They coulda done that as well, but they didn’t, ain’t that right?” Hackey asked, bumping into another person.

It was weird. More than weird. The heavy smell from the cars (different from the heavy smell from his apartment, which was probably because the closed windows and the heavy air inside), the sounds. People talking. A musician on the street.

So many things, Hackey had trouble focusing, so he decided to focus on his friend’s ridiculous coat and hat, and followed him, trying to ignore all the other sensations.

He never bumped into people online.

Well, apart from Tsukumoya Georg who lived in Ikebukuro and bumped into Hackey  _ all the time _ but he is an outlier and should not be counted.

Speaking of whom...

“What if Tsukumoya is also in the same shoes as you?”

“Then I’ll know more either way. I gotta know if he’s still online or not, and the only way is to access his chat.”

“Can you do that?”

“Who the hell do ya think you are talkin’ to?”

“I have no doubt in your abilities in your normal state. But you are a human -  _ human _ , I repeat, not even a vampire…”

“Just ‘cause my body ain’t one, my mind is, so shut up ‘bout that.”

“Duly noted. Either way, you are a human being about to use a public computer. Can you do it like that?”

“Sure thing. Catch me some painkillers, and no fuckin’ public computer can stop me from accessing that bitch ass’ chatroom.”

 

So he did.

Obviously.

He wasn’t a fucking  _ amateur. _

  
  


**Hackey Mouse**

heya did ya miss me?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Hardly.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

How did game night go?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

hurtful~

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i won how else could it have gone. duh

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i figure there’s no news yet abt what nebula’s been up to, huh?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I have certain suspicions, but I need to check a few things first.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

If you wouldn’t mind, I have things to be doing right now. Later, perhaps, QAWSED?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

awww ya mean that better thing than talkin’ to me?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

actually i am also kinda busy, i was just checkin’ whether u have any news or not

 

**Hackey Mouse**

catch ya later, then~

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

Hackey leant back on his chair, after logging off the chatroom, humming.

“So what’s your next step?”

“Hm? Oh, I’m gonna need your help a bit. Get me some ID’s and shit like that.”

“...what are you planning?”

At this, Hackey spinned on the library’s chair, and leant forward again, with a grin on his face.

“I’m finally gonna get into Ikebukuro while Tsukumoya is still there. Can’t pass up a chance like this now can I?”

 

-

 

Tsukumoya woke up.

A moment of panic as he realised he’d been out again, for the second time in his life, and then a wave of nausea as he sat up reflexively.

_ Sat up… _

He stared at a pair of hands he didn’t recognise, had no reason to recognise. Hands.  _ Oh _ . The body’s head was pounding, slowing his thoughts to a near standstill, but even through all that fog he knew this was Nebula. Somehow, he wasn’t sure, they’d put him in a human body. The first thing he noticed about being human was everything hurt. The second was that walking was harder than he thought, which he learnt after tentatively standing and finding himself on his face - no, the body’s face. It wasn’t his. Important to remember that.

_ Someone’s _ face. He wondered about that. Whose body had this been?

Hauling himself to his feet, Tsukumoya steadied himself against the wall, breathing heavily. Breathing. Seemed like effort. Awfully inconvenient. Still, at least it was an unconscious process so at least you couldn’t forget and die, and it didn’t occupy all of your time. However, he found that once you started to think about breathing it was difficult to  _ stop _ and you had to concentrate on every breath. Not practical at all. 

Glancing round he tried to get his bearings. He appeared to be in an apartment somewhere, alone. 

Not in a lab. Not being studied or dissected. In an ordinary apartment. Alone.

He narrowed his eyes. Nebula were undoubtedly still watching. This place would have cameras, mics, bugs monitoring him, observing how he behaved. How would an AI react in human form?

Theoretically they could have two subjects. QAWSED could be in this situation too.

_ …need to find a way to contact him _ , Tsukumoya thought hazily.

Needed to sweep the place for surveillance equipment.

Needed to figure out walking without clutching at the walls desperately.

Needed to find out where he was.

He staggered over to the window, sweeping the curtains aside clumsily. A single look at the view and a sigh of relief swept over him. He knew this street. Ikebukuro. His city. In one sense, he was home, looking out the window at his city. In another he was further from home than he ever had been or could be and he hated it, the complaining joints, the infuriatingly slow processing speed, the clunkiness of movement. The involuntary motions he didn’t intend. The whole experience was uncomfortable and it hurt a lot. Especially the headache.

Whose head was it, exactly? He looked at the windows; the stranger in the reflection shrugged. No idea. A complete stranger, with a serious face, dark eyes and messier hair than he perhaps would have liked, not that he would have liked  _ any _ body whatsoever. At least, another odd blessing, he was Japanese. Introducing himself as Tsukumoya Shinichi would attract undue attention were he Caucasian, for instance, or of African origin. He looked at the face and saw the eyebrows furrow in confused concentration.

So. Next moves. He stumbled around the apartment, checking for cameras and listening devices. He found three cameras in the bedroom alone, mostly by falling into objects and knocking them loose. He lined them all up in a row on the desk, looking into them and allowing himself a faint smile as practise for potential interactions later. He found some more in the bathroom and placed them with the others, two in the kitchen too. He found some small listening devices under desks and, after searching, located a screwdriver in a ridiculously disorganised utility draw he couldn’t refrain from tidying. Right. It took some practise to make the hands work with enough coordination to unscrew the wall outlet and pull out the permanent listening device that had been wired into the mains, intended be used on a long term basis. The thought of being in this body long term made Tsukumoya’s stomach - the _ body’s  _ stomach - turn, or maybe that was just a side-effect of the process. He frowned and examined the device intently.

“I suppose I ought to say hello,” he managed, voice hoarse and unpractised, stumbling over words slightly. He coughed and tried again. “Though, I honestly don’t know the proper etiquette for talking to a shady corporation through listening devices. Not a task I ever envisaged myself doing but this appears to be where we stand. Now, I don’t know how you’ve done this, but I’ll have you know I don’t appreciate it one bit. I’d have thought you would have gone for an advanced robotic body rather than this - where did you find it? Was it a coma patient or some social drop-out you decided to abduct in the name of science, as per your modus operandi? I somewhat doubt they were a volunteer, knowing you.” He looked over at the row of cameras and smiled awkwardly. “However it seems thanks is in order for leaving me in Ikebukuro. That, at least, I do appreciate.” He found himself sighing and felt like this was something he’d end up doing a lot. “That is the only thing I have to thank you for. Talk later.” He put the wall socket back and set the screwdriver on the side with the neat row of cameras. Just in case he needed it again. There was a phone there too but Tsukumoya didn’t plan on using it if his life depended on it. If there had been a laptop there, it would have been the same deal.

He needed a phone. He needed a computer.

He needed money.

First things first. He threw on some clothes, rather haphazardly, ending up with an orange button-up shirt he took three attempts to button, an unravelling and worn brown and red striped cardigan (that he found himself somehow fond of) and brown trousers he had to roll up because whichever Nebula employee had picked them out had chosen a pair that were too long for his legs. He headed out, eyeing up the stairs before deciding that was an overly optimistic decision and taking the elevator down from his second floor apartment instead. Once he left the building he made his way toward the bank he held an account in. On the way he couldn’t help admiring his city. Here he was, in the flesh, walking through these streets and for a moment he almost forgot about the headache, the aching joints, everything he hated about this body. This was his city and it was bustling around him, living and breathing and he was a part of this now, the people, the noise, everything he’d only observed from the outside until now. It was overwhelming at first but then it started to feel relaxing. The only positive about this.

 

Breathing in the air.

 

Though now he was thinking about breathing again and that was once again frustrating.

 

He arrived at the bank, mulling over what he would say. Walking was still not his strong suit, but he was able to put one foot in front of the other and not look drunk, which was a success in his book. Realising he had his shoes on the wrong feet, however, was embarrassing, and he had to stop, take them off, and then spend half an hour trying to re-tie the laces now. By the time he actually made it to the bank he had mostly mastered these basics, though as for fine motor skills, that was something else, and apparently his appearance and uneven gait still drew a lot of stares. He walked up to the front desk and attempted a smile.

 

“Hello? Can I help you, sir?” the woman at the desk asked.

 

“Ah? Yes, yes you can.” Tsukumoya shifted, then realised he would have to go into specifics. “My name is Tsukumoya Shinichi, I hold an account with you that I opened online. Due to a change in my current circumstances, I’m going to require a card.”

 

“Tsukumoya Shinichi? Like the writer?” the woman sounded interested.

 

Tsukumoya nodded. “Exactly, yes. I have the account details-”

 

“Do you have any ID?”

 

Oh. A problem. Tsukumoya had seen no ID in the apartment and he couldn’t think of a legitimate excuse that would still get him access to his money. How did humans cope, thinking so slowly? Perhaps part of it was the migraine but this was just pitiful. He’d been reduced to  _ this _ .

 

And he had to improvise.

 

“I...don’t carry identification,” he said quickly, thinking on his feet. “I don’t believe in it. It’s a gross invasion of my privacy, and I am a very private person, this kind of thing is woefully intrusive. I’m simply not comfortable with this kind of thing at all.” Better to sound like a bit of a conspiracy nut than a con artist, right? “I can answer all the security questions, I know my access code, if there’s anything else I can do-”

 

The woman smiled. “No problem. I’m sure we can sort something out.”

 

“My sincerest apologies for the inconvenience. I’m sorry my...uh,  _ eccentricities _ have given you grief.”

 

“It’s fine, Mr Tsukumoya. Writers are often unusual, right?”

 

Tsukumoya found himself smiling wryly. “You’re not wrong there.”

 

-

 

It took a little paperwork and some discussion with the manager before he managed to walk out with a bank card and access to the funds he’d accumulated. The woman he’d spoken to initially had asked him to sign a copy of one of his books and he acquiesced, smirking to himself. This book would be one of a kind now. This book would be the only genuine signed copy of one of his works in existence (he’d seen fakes circulating before now which had been highly amusing at the time), and he hoped he wouldn’t be out here long enough to create many more. His signature was a mess but he hoped she’d assume that was a writer thing not an ‘AI who has never held a pen before shoved into a human body without warning as a science experiment by a shady corporation’ thing. Not that the latter option was likely.

 

“He doesn’t look how I’d imagined,” he heard her whisper. “Have you seen that outfit? Still, he is kinda cute.”

 

“You think?” her colleague replied.

 

“Yeah, definitely. He’s short and he’s got a cute round face. Nice hair too. It’s pretty adorable.”

 

Tsukumoya felt an involuntary burn spread across the body’s face and cursed this human form and its innately uncontrollable nature. Hopefully this wouldn’t happen often, he’d get its emotional response under control.

 

Now he could access his money, time to get some essentials. He went by three phone shops to pick up three different phones just in case, and two other tech stores to find two laptops - one to use now, one spare. Then he found some free WiFi and got online, from the outside now. Accessing his chatroom was harder; this wasn’t a situation he’d ever anticipated, being human. His security was infuriatingly tight. As it should be. This whole thing seemed like a sick joke. If Orihara knew, he’d laugh and laugh and laugh.

 

Another reason to reverse this development as soon as possible, not even just so Orihara didn’t notice anything going on - simply put, being part of the species Orihara loved unconditionally was, frankly, distasteful and he would rather  _ not _ . 

 

He emailed his editors informing them that due to a change in his living situation, he would not be able to meet the deadline for his next chapter. It was the first time he’d ever missed a deadline like this. He’d never claimed personal reasons before. Part of him was tempted to contact them and arrange a face to face meeting, but he decided against it as their relationship, while friendly, was purely professional. And he didn’t want them to know about the intricacies of the ‘living situation’.

 

An email came back asking if he was okay, if they could do anything to help.

 

He thought about it before politely declining the offer, thanking them profusely for their patience.

 

‘No problem,’ the reply came. ‘As machine-like as you can be sometimes, you’re still human’

 

Yes.

 

He was.

 

Unfortunately.

 

-

 

And then Hackey messaged him as normal, with no hint anything was amiss. Tsukumoya responded in kind until Hackey outright asked him if he knew what Nebula was planning.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i figure there’s no news yet abt what nebula’s been up to, huh?

 

_ Tell him the truth, or lie? _

 

He wanted to be sure before he said anything. He didn’t want to go into this blind. Nothing seemed to have happened to QAWSED, there was no cause to give him concern without being 100% certain, right?

 

He wanted to be sure.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I have certain suspicions, but I need to check a few things first.

 

And that just about summed it up, didn’t it.

 

_ Suspicions _ .

 

Or something rather more concrete than that at least. 

 

He’d tell QAWSED when he was sure about everything. About all of this nonsense. Besides, he didn’t want to give away the fact he was no longer protecting Ikebukuro from QAWSED’s prying. Hopefully he could get back inside soon. Couldn’t have QAWSED getting in while he was human.

 

He’d tell QAWSED when he was sure.

 

Assuming Nebula didn’t get to him first.

 

-

 

“Would you please reconsider the neon coloured outfit?”

“I reconsidered. That’s why I picked up a hat as well.”

“I don’t even know you.”

Hackey grinned, and just held onto Doubs’ arm as they walked through the airport. Totally just to annoy him. Definitely not because he did not feel all that stable on those two lanky legs, especially with all these people around. Too many bumping into. He really hated this side-effect of having a physical form.

Speaking of annoying side-effects…

“Thirteen hours?! Connecting flights?! Are ya fucking kiddin’ me? Fuckin’ hell, Doubs, how do I stay in one place for thirteen hours?!”

“It’s not that bad. Probably will find it easier in a small place which will restrict you there…”

Hackey stopped, reached up, and yanked Doubs’ collar so he could get in his face again.

“Not. Funny.”

“What have I told you about personal space and you getting into mine?”

“My preferred personal space is me in the digital world and everyone else outside of it, but we ain’t havin’ what we want now do we?”

He did end up letting Doubs go, and slumped down into one of the chairs. He didn’t have many bags - just a bunch of clothes and bare necessities. He didn’t have much in his hands, though.

But at least he had an ID now.

“Why Quentin Donaghue? Sounds stupid.”

“The full name would be Quentin Alistair Winston Sierra Endlington Donaghue but that wouldn’t fit on the card.”

“What the actual fuck Dou… oh. Oooooh. QAWSED. Okay, that is pretty damn funny.”

Hackey couldn’t help but snicker, and even Doubs grinned.

“I thought you’d appreciate it. Anyway, can I ask you something?”

“Ya would ask it even if I’d say no, so shoot.”

“Why didn’t you tell Tsukumoya what happened?”

Hackey looked to the side - the many, many people walking in different directions, before answering.

“What happened, Doubs? Do we know? Because if ya know, ya should fill me in.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Dunno. Maybe I just don’t want him to mock me for gettin’ into this situation. Or maybe I’m not sure what to do if he  _ doesn’t  _ mock me, yanno. ‘Sides, I’m goin’ to Ikebukuro either way. I can tell it to him from there.”

“And after that?”

“Dunno. Could ya tell the Organization?”

“Too late. I had already took pictures of you and sent it to everyone privately. Yellow had already started memes about it.”

“Sonovabitch.”

“Him or me?”

“Both. Also, I’m sure his memes are sub-par at best.”

 

By the way, yes. The plane flight was as horrible as he imagined it to be. Fuck Doubs.

 

And speaking of things that were horrible? His phone died.

Okay, it just needed recharging, but right after arriving in Ikebukuro, his brain was blanking on how to get that done.  _ Blanking.  _ He hated not having solutions to problems, so just for now he put away his phone.

He massaged the bridge of his nose - he was jetlagged as fuck, seriously, physical forms were so inconvenient. His muscles felt cramped, his shoulders more tense than before, and his headache came back. Good thing he actually got painkillers.

And now he was in Ikebukuro.

Not in the way he intended, and still not the best case scenario, but he got in.

Right. What now? He had to admit he had no other plan. Probably find a hotel. Definitely charge his phone. Find a place with wifi, and bug Tsukumoya again. Possibly tell him what’s going on. Maybe he could send him a selfie from somewhere in Ikebukuro? Yes that sounded fine. Find something that is a trademark of the city, send a selfie to Tsukumoya where he’s flipping him off, and then it’s already less disastrous than just  _ I woke up like dis.  _ Which he totally did, but that was irrelevant.

Right. He needed to find a landmark. Tsukumoya would probably recognize it, even if he would take a selfie with a trashcan, but still.

Wait. Before the landmark, he needed to charge his phone.

He sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose again - this was seriously annoying. The jetlag, his glasses were starting to get mildly uncomfortable from a long period of wearing them, and not to mention his human brain kept jumping around, but not in the pace he was used to. Usually when he thought up something, he could do it almost that quickly as well. He really wasn’t used to taking longer time with doing things.

Right.

Time to find some place to charge his phone.

Too bad he didn’t know this city. At all.

_ Thanks Tsukumoya. _

 

It took him about an hour of wandering around, almost walking into three lamppost, actually running into a vending machine which fell over (he was sure it was already wobbly, but he just kept walking he ain’t gonna pay for that shit), and he finally found a small coffee shop. Which didn’t have free wifi (rude), but it had outlets - sure all of them seemed occupied, but he won’t let this stop him now will he?

At one of the corners, there was a guy sitting alone, seemingly charging three phones, and even having two laptops out.

Okay. He clearly didn’t need to charge all of them the same time did he?

And he could maybe try this human thing: coffee. Apparently according to his memories, people liked coffee after jetlag. Worth a shot.

Not to mention, maybe he could talk with the guy with all the electronics. Anyone who seems to be online that much is probably not a bad person.

Also he looked quite attractive. Despite the weird clothes he was wearing, but hey, Hackey could also appreciate that, seeing as how he looked like.

Alright.

Time to socialize. Maybe. Sort of.

 

-

 

Tsukumoya had been back to ‘his’ apartment once. Nebula knew where he was. Nebula knew how to find him whether he was in the apartment or not. They didn’t seem to be planning anything aside from this human travesty, so he didn’t see why it hurt if they knew where he was. It was the easiest way for him to observe them too. Nothing had changed in the apartment since he’d left, which he took to mean they didn’t care enough to alter it. But they knew he knew they were watching. He looked into the cameras and smiled, before turning them all to the wall and going to sleep.

 

If he could exercise even the slightest control he would, however petty it made him.

 

He didn’t use any of his phones or laptops inside the apartment. He turned them all off so Nebula wouldn’t have opportunity to gain access. Paranoid, yes. But paranoia had served him well before becoming human. There was no reason why it wouldn’t work now.

 

The next day he headed out to a little cafe he knew had secure WiFi, even if you did have to pay for it, something most people found unreasonable these days. However he wasn’t complaining. If that was the price for decent security, he’d pay it. He bought himself some tea and sat there drinking it, making adjustments to his computers, setting up antivirus (an embarrassment right there, that  _ he  _ even needed antivirus, like some ordinary person who hadn’t basically been able to carry out all the functions of an antivirus by himself). Checking his emails. Scouring his chatroom. Reading every online article and blog post about Ikebukuro. 

 

He was an information broker. He needed information.

 

That was how the day went, occasionally ordering more tea and trying to type on two screens, in thirty-seven tabs at once, and that was barely anything for him. How did anyone ever get anything done? How had Ada Lovelace ever found the time to invent any computing algorithms with a brain that overheated when given too much to think about? How had anyone since ever continued that work, leading up to Tsukumoya’s own existence? He flitted from task to task, trying to get a fraction of what he needed to do done, even if a fraction was all he could do. He kept working.

 

He wasn’t going to let a human body keep him from getting things done, was he now?

 

Approaching footsteps. An attention-seeking little cough. He looked up.

 

There was some guy there. Wearing neon clothing. Which didn’t even match. If you were going to pick an obnoxious colour, pick  _ one _ and roll with it, rather than that absurd explosion in a neon highlighter factory or whatever was going on there. He was pale, covered in freckles, with ginger hair and glasses. A complete nerd, presumably. Tsukumoya looked up at him expectantly. This seemed like a precursor to a conversation, so he’d take it from there.

“Yes?” He saw the young man’s gaze drift toward the plug sockets and realisation dawned on him. “Ah - yes, I’m definitely hogging these, aren’t I? Apologies. Let me just-” he unplugged one of his phones. “Is that better?”

“Much better. Thanks,” the man spoke, and there was only a hint of an accent in his speech. And also looked very eager to charge his phone. “Man, these batteries ain’t worth anythin’ these days. Also, do ya think the coffee here is good? I’m jetlagged as fuck, I gotta drink somethin’ for it.”

“I’ve not tried it,” Tsukumoya shrugged. “I’ve mostly been drinking tea, but I’m sure the coffee is decent too. How long was your flight anyway?”

“Thirteen hours with changing flights once. Ain’t fun, lemme tell ya. Have ya ever been on a flight that long?”

“Uh - no,” Tsukumoya admitted, technically truthfully. “I...suppose you could say I’ve never left Japan. I don’t really get out of this area much, to tell you the truth.”

“....oooh, I see. Then you can help me” the young man leaned forward, with a mischevious glint behind his glasses. “I need ya to tell me a place here in Ikebukuro. It can be anythin’ as long as it’s recognizable. I gotta take a selfie there and send it to someone. It is extremely important, yanno. But I dunno much ‘bout this area, soooo. So whataya think? Can ya think of anything like that?”

Tsukumoya couldn’t help smiling. He was being asked questions about Ikebukuro as a trusted authority. He could talk about this city all day without breaking a sweat. It wasn’t as if this stranger could know what asking him for advice meant, but it still meant a lot.  _ Act casual. Don’t let him know the full breadth of your knowledge about Ikebukuro. You’re trying to seem human, here. _

“There’s obviously several statues, fountains, that sort of ornamental thing. And there’s always West Gate Park, that’s been on television a lot. But you can get fountains and statues and parks anywhere. For something that honestly captures the heart and soul of the city, its true personality, you need something distinct, something unique. A road sign embedded into a wall, the Headless Rider in the background behind you, both of which, however, are not guaranteed and difficult to organise. Something more permanent would be better, like Russia Sushi, for instance. It’s recognisable and unique and there’s honestly nowhere quite like it anywhere else.” He smiled faintly. “Especially if Simon’s there. A wonderful man, just don’t cross him. That might be unwise.” He trailed off, realising he’d been rambling. “I’m sorry, I’ve talked for too long. I hope that at least helped with your dilemma.”

The young man looked at Tsukumoya with a wide-eyed expression, but nevertheless listening to all his ramblings. “Maaan. Ya really know this city. Alrighty, that… Russia Sushi thing sounds… interesting? Not to mention I’m kinda hungry too. Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He leaned forward, over all the electronics on the table, and grinned, the mischevious light not disappearing from his green eyes. “Wanna join me? Yanno, you could show me around the city, hang out, eat somethin’ together… catchin’ my drift?”

“Ah. A date?” Tsukumoya raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged. “No reason why not.” There was, of course, a major reason he could think of, that being he’d only been human just over a day. But if he was going to be human, he may as well experience as many human things as possible, this included, and at least the guy was aesthetically appealing. Besides, it’d be nice to show someone around the city. “When your phone is fully charged, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”

 

-

 

So, Hackey really didn’t plan on anything like this for today, but hey, he wasn’t complaining. He didn’t end up buying coffee in the end (that will be an adventure for another day), but he got his phone charged. And he got… well, a date. Of sorts.

The guy really looked calm and collected, but as soon as the city was mentioned, he went on full-on nerd-mode, especially when the two of them actually got outside and started to walk into the direction that Hackey assumed was leading to Russia Sushi.

There was also the off-chance of course that he ran into some homicidal maniac, who was just luring him into somewhere isolated to murder him horribly. But to be honest, as soon as he opened his mouth to talk about various spots in the city? Yeah, he sort of doubted it. Way too much of a nerd to be a murderer.

“...and this was where the Dollars met up for the first time, a whole group of people mobilised through the internet, and the Headless Rider was caught on camera, though everyone disputes that footage now. A reward got put out at one point which naturally caused chaos and had to be suspended for reasons of public safety. Anyone could have told them that would happen, honestly. Offer money and there will always be people willing to go to any extremes. Including chasing the Headless Rider around on motorbikes. Because  _ that _ was going to end well.” The guy rolled his eyes and pulled a face. The look of disappointment he had was hilarious, Hackey couldn’t help snorting. God, what an absolute  _ nerd. _

Then there was a pain in his face, which forced him to stop. Ow. Owwww. He fixed his glasses, and just looked at the offending lamppost. Riiight.

“Wow. Right. This was… something. This happened. Okay. Um.” Hackey tried his best to regain his dignity. “So uhhh… which way?”

The guy smirked and God his face was annoyingly cute when he did that. “Just coming up over here on the left. And be careful. Not all of the lampposts around here have been ripped out of the ground, you know? Just statistically more than most areas.”

“Yea, yea. I heard ‘bout that. That bartender guy, right?” Hackey asked, trying to cover up his embarrassment, and might have held onto the guy’s shoulders for a few moments while walking around him. Totally accidentally of course. He had to go on the other side of him, obviously. Less lampposts.

“He actually works for a debt collection agency these days, but yes, he dresses like a bartender. Helpful really, easy to recognise and steer clear of. So just don’t get into debt and don’t piss off any blond bartenders and you should be fine.”

“Gotcha. I don’t really plan on stayin’ that long in Ikebukuro, actually to go into debt.” There was also the other issue, that he  _ does  _ have quite the attitude that pisses people off. Well, he can always avoid any bartenders, then. He really didn’t want to test the pain threshold of this body.

And just on the next corner, there was the building, that was probably Russia Sushi. Score.

“Righto. Just gimme a sec, and we can go in, okay?” And with that, Hackey pulled out his phone, and just snapped a selfie of himself, grinning wide, with holding up one of his hands in a peace sign because of course he did so.

With the caption  _ Guess where am I, nerd. _

And just pressed send.

 

-

 

One of Tsukumoya’s phones buzzed. Not unusual in itself. 

He checked it.

Hackey had sent him a photo message. Rolling his eyes pre-emptively he opened it and just  _ stared _ . 

He looked up at the ‘stranger’, who didn’t seem to have noticed his reaction yet. And he looked back at the photo. There could be no mistake. QAWSED was here in Ikebukuro, in physical form too. They really were in the same boat.

How to broach the topic with him…?   
Coughing slightly to get his attention, Tsukumoya turned his phone around, QAWSED’s freshly taken selfie displayed.

“So this may be a little awkward…” he trailed off. The look on QAWSED’s face was truly priceless. Tsukumoya couldn’t help smirking slightly. “Welcome to Ikebukuro.”

“A li…  _ welcome?!  _ Oh my fuckin’ god, I cannot believe this.” QAWSED ran his fingers over his hair, visibly agitated. “I cannot believe it, you fuckin’ asshole. All these people in this city, and I gotta run into you. Shoulda known, who else would be this much of an utter frickin’ nerd ‘bout this city?  _ Obviously  _ it’s you. Fuckin’ hell.”

Tsukumoya shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Waking up human being one of them, am I right?”

“...ain’t gonna argue with you on that point. By the way while we are at this point:  _ certain suspicions?  _ I’d say this is a tiiiiny bit more than just a  _ certain suspicion  _ ain’t it?”

“You didn’t say anything to me about this at the time. How was I supposed to know you were in the same situation? I needed more info before I could say anything definite.” He narrowed his eyes. “I take it Nebula got you too?”

“Well, there’s always the chance that my fairy godmother finally showed up and decided to give me the Pinocchio treatment which is -  _ rude  _ I gotta tell ya, but I somehow really doubt that’s the case. And I think that  _ Hackey I’m in a human body  _ woulda been quite a definite info, yanno. Oh wait no, ya never call me Hackey. Hey, this gives a dilemma: how will ya call me?” A wide grin appeared on QAWSED’s face. “Cause somehow I doubt ya will pronounce my full name correctly as intended, and ya refuse to call me Hackey, and saying just the six letters means ya will have to keysmash every time you address me.”

“Keysmashing out loud? Does that even work?” Tsukumoya shook his head. “Never mind. I think I’ll just avoid addressing you. That seems like a reasonable solution.”

“You are one rude motherfucker, yanno.”

“Hardly something to call someone you just asked out, is it now?” Tsukumoya smiled almost smugly (fine, maybe a little smugly). QAWSED  _ definitely  _ blushed at that.

“Shaddup. First of all: does not count, I had no idea it was you. Second of all: you said yes, so what does that make you?”

“I took pity on a lonely foreigner who needed directions and asked for company. It was the polite thing to do.”

“Polite thing, my ass. Either way, I’m still fuckin’ hungry. Fuckin’ hell. This past day or so had been so  _ great.  _ But good to know you are still a bitch even when in a human body.”

“Thank you. Do you still want to go grab some sushi?”

“...fine. But just to be clear, this ain’t a date no more.”

“Understood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LOOK THE ACTUAL PLOT HAD ARRIVED WITH A LITTLE BIT OF AWKWARD FLIRTING WE WEREN'T LYING EYYY


	5. Phase Three - Part Two

Russia Sushi was delightful as always, not that QAWSED seemed in any mood to appreciate it having just found out his cunning plan to acquire a date had gone more than a little pear-shaped. It was admittedly mildly disconcerting that they had run into one another so easily and Tsukumoya suspected this had to be part of Nebula’s plan somehow. Or something. He couldn’t put his finger on it, the human brain was so infernally slow. Nice as it was to have QAWSED around, he didn’t like this contrived coincidence, it seemed pretty fishy. Just to be on the safe side, he wasn’t heading back to that cafe again.

After they had finished their meal and tipped Simon generously (or, at least, Tsukumoya tipped Simon because he was polite unlike certain other AI he was acquainted with. Not naming any names) they left the restaurant together, which Tsukumoya rationalised as a necessary precaution; they were the only two who could trust one another and at the very least QAWSED would need help finding his hotel. Perhaps there was even some concern in there about how he was adjusting to human form, whether there were any details about it he’d omitted, it was a pressing issue that was all. They had to look out for one another and that was that, as the only others in their situation, the only other point of reference. Now, more than ever, they were the only people they could rely on.

Well. While QAWSED was the only one Tsukumoya could trust (to an extent), meanwhile he had his vampire friends, his Organisation of which he was a valued part. QAWSED had his allies. They could provide some assistance through this, presumably. He needed this - needed Tsukumoya, that is - less than Tsukumoya needed him.

Whatever he did, Tsukumoya knew he couldn’t let QAWSED find that out. At the very least he’d tease him for his sentimentality, at the worst, he might decide he was right and return to a sort of familiarity; in short, leave, and Tsukumoya couldn’t afford to be alone with Nebula out there, planning God only knew what. Couldn’t risk it. Had to be practical about this, when all was said and done.

So he said nothing. About that anyway. Even though he knew it was QAWSED, even though he knew QAWSED had no real interest in the city, Tsukumoya couldn’t help pointing out elements of note.

“We’re not that far from the Headless Rider’s place,” he remarked absently, after they’d been walking for a while, then smirked faintly at the look of brief curiosity on QAWSED’s absurdly freckled face, before adding, “Not that I’m going to tell you where it is, mind.”

“Then why are ya even bringin’ it up?” QAWSED shook his head, annoyed, his ridiculous wavy locks of hair flapping around. He looked truly absurd. “If ya want to show me around, do that, but stop that annoyin’ shit. I have enough problems without your smug fuckin’ smirking face.”

“It was a talking point,” Tsukumoya replied flatly. “And what’s this? Oh, we’re talking? Looks like it worked, didn’t it? Thank me later.” He didn’t so much as glance at QAWSED and kept walking.

“Oh wow, what happened with the fact that ya think I’m annoying? I never thought I’d live to see the day you’d want to talk to me. Ya usually don’t.”

He rolled his eyes. “You _are_ annoying. However, we’re here, like it or not, this is the situation we’re in. We may as well make the best of it.”

“Right, right, whatever. So, impress me with your fuckin’ city, then. You like talkin’ about it way too much either way, so. What am I missing when you are keepin’ me outta here?”

“Oh, you know.” He smiled thinly. “Demon swords, colour gangs, a dullahan on a motorbike, yakuza, the delight that is Shizuo...the usual, really. If you’re that desperate to have fun, I know a pretty decent bar. I’ve not been there yet, but it has some good reviews so I could give you directions and you go enjoy yourself. Sound good?”

“Doubs did say somethin’ like I should avoid alcohol, which means that I absolutely fuckin’ have to try alcohol, of course. And what ya just described sounds pretty much like an average Sunday for me. Just add vampires of course.”

“Ah, did I forget to mention we _have_ a vampire? Or a dhampyr anyway. You have heard of the serial killer Hollywood, correct? True, it doesn't quite match what you're used to but it doesn't need to. The city has its own distinct atmosphere, its own life and right now we are part of that.  Part of what makes this city this city, cells that sustain its life. I wouldn't expect you to be interested.  You've made it quite clear that you find this place sincerely underwhelming.  Now, can I trust you to follow directions to the bar?” He mulled it over for a moment then shook his head. “On second thoughts, no, I think not. Left to your own devices you'll run into Shizuo and get yourself thrown several blocks and while you would no doubt deserve it, I wouldn't want that to happen. If anything happens to these bodies, that'll be it, you know?” He managed to keep his expression carefully neutral as he came to a decision he was certain he would regret.  “Well. I'll just have to come with you, won't I? Letting you get drunk in this city alone would be irresponsible of me.” Shooting QAWSED a withering look, he kept walking in the same direction as him.  “That's decided then. I'm coming with.”

“Oh, people related to the Hijiribe clan are dhampyrs. How fuckin’ surprising.” QAWSED shot him a look. “Pleaaaaase, Tsukumoya. Just ‘cause I couldn’t come into your precious city, it doesn’t mean I’m totally clueless. But judgin’ by your own logic, doesn’t it mean that other cities have this kinda _life_ ya talk ‘bout too? See, for example Groweth. Or New York’s many districts. Or just another district in Tokyo. Crazy shit happens everywhere in our world, why _Ikebukuro_ of all places?” He glanced at Tsukumoya from the corner of his eye, before shaking his head, while obviously following Tsukumoya’s lead to the bar. “Nevermind. Forget I asked.”

“You’d be right. All cities have their own life. That’s exactly how it works. And I happen to have settled on Ikebukuro. It’s interesting to me. It’s unique. I suppose to a lot of people it has a kind of pull that draws them all in, winds them up into complex narratives. And that’s part of the draw. What happens in Groweth is what happens in Groweth, what happens in New York is what happens in New York. The same sort of rough outlines occur differently because of their location, the way the city around them reacts creating a different kind of story. I happen to be interested in the way Ikebukuro reacts. Is that good enough for you?”

QAWSED actually seemed to listen to him - he actually almost walked into a few people while doing so, and in the end he just shrugged. “Yea, yea I gotcha. I mean I got what ya mean. Not sure I agree with this _living city_ thing, but whatever. Are we there yet? I need some alcohol to this philosophical shit.”

“Just coming up here,” Tsukumoya replied, pointing the place out. “This is why you didn’t read my books, isn’t it? No alcohol online. Here we are.” He stopped just outside the front door. “Now you get to see what all the fuss is about. I don’t intend to drink. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Someone has to keep an eye on you.”

“I did read your fuckin’ books.” QAWSED rolled his eyes, and then also stopped. “I just failed to see what the whole fuss was ‘bout, that’s it. Pffft. Ya just have no idea how would you handle alcohol. You’re just afraid you’d turn out to be a total lightweight ain’tcha?” He grinned, a wide grin that could only be described as _shit-eating,_ as he pushed the pub’s door. And then realised that he had to pull it to open.

“Given that you apparently can’t read the sign saying ‘pull’ while sober, I don’t have high hopes for what you’ll be like drunk,” Tsukumoya muttered, pointing at the rather obvious sign. “This is why someone needs to be the sober friend. Not that I’m saying we’re friends, before you even start.”

“Of course we are not friends. Unlike you, I know what it’s like” QAWSED shot back, obviously trying to mask his embarrassment. Too bad his cheeks definitely flushed a little. “Ain’t gonna lie, I’m not a fan of the idea of me being drunk and you just fuckin’ laughing at me.”

“I might drink a little then,” Tsukumoya conceded. “But not much. One of us needs to have common sense, and no offence but you are automatically disqualified by virtue of being you.”

“Pfffft. You ain’t that much better than me and ya know it.”

“So you claim, but I’m yet to see any evidence of that,” Tsukumoya retorted, heading into the bar, making a point to _pull_ the door open. He shot QAWSED a look that clearly said ‘was that so hard?’ and QAWSED glared back. “Right then. What are we getting?”

“I dunno” QAWSED’s voice suddenly switched to cheerful, as he practically skipped to the bar. It was a miracle he didn’t trip on his own feet, judging by what Tsukumoya had seen of him so far. “Let’s check what they have and then… well, what the hell. Try some. It can’t be that bad, righhht~?”

 

-

 

For the matter of fact yes, it _was_ that bad.

Funny thing about alcohol was, that it tasted like shit, but despite what Tsukumoya had said, neither of them stopped drinking. Hackey had the sinking suspicion that Tsukumoya simply didn’t want to fall behind Hackey, like it was one of their ridiculous challenges, only this time in real life.

Another funny thing about alcohol was, that the more you drank, the less shit it seemed like to taste, so why the hell stop?

Also, another much less funny and actually kind of inconvenient thing about alcohol was, that it made speaking incredibly hard. Which was really annoying, especially for someone like Hackey. 

“I’m just sayiinnnn. Sayinn, that if that… fffff, forgot the name. Nevermind. Whatever. I’m just sayin’, yanno? Ya get me.”

Tsukumoya raised his eyebrows and smirked - no, _grinned_. Fuckin’ asshole. “Can’t read minds, QAWJSHIED. I dunno what you were trying to say in any language.”

Hackey just stared at Tsukumoya for a few moments, before breaking out in laughter. He doubled over, which meant he partially lay on top of the table, and he just couldn’t stop laughing. “Wha--- what the hell was that?! That ain’t my name. That’s nowhere near close to my name.” Hackey was wheezing from the laughter, and was pretty sure he had tears in his eyes.

Tsukumoya frowned. “Well I’d like to see you try and say my name after everything you’ve had to drink, see how _that_ goes.”

“A---riiiiight. I can do that.” Hackey straightened himself, fixing his glasses, and decided to go for it with utmost confidence. “Tsukishimi Shinmuya. See? Wait. That ain’t it, is it?” He tilted his head in a confused manner. “Eiiiither wayy. I have an easily pronouncable shorter name yanno. Unlike you, pompous ass of pompousness.”

“You mean pomposity,” Tsukumoya corrected because _of course he did_ . Even when he was drunk that guy was a total dick. “Pompousness isn’t a word.” He snickered. God, he was practically _laughing_ . Hackey had to do a double take, make sure he wasn’t imagining it. Nope, it was legit. “Tsukishimi Shinmuya. I can’t believe you messed up that badly.” He was _still_ snickering. _Bastard_. “A for effort, though.”

“I still didn’t mess that up as badly as ya messed up my name. It ain’t even close to how ya pronounce my name. I fuckin’ hate ya.” Hackey was grumbling, as he downed his latest glass of… whatever the hell they were drinking right now.

As if keeping count, Tsukumoya downed another glass too. Hell, he probably _was_ keeping count. That’d be just like him. “Thankkk you. Means a lot to be recognised as an asshole by one so esteemed as yourself.”

“You’re fuckin’ welcome. Heeyyyyy, I just thought of somethin~” Hackey grinned, as he leaned forward, close to Tsukomoya’s face, a total shit-eating grin on his own face. Personal space? Who cares about that. Especially not when he just had this thought. “Ya were all high an’ mighty ‘bout being sober an’ sensible. An’ now loook at you. Soooo wasted.”

“You’re a fiiiine one to talk about that,” Tsukumoya fired back. “You’ve been out of it since the first glasss.”

“That ain’t even remotely true, stop bein’ a bitch-ass liarrrr.”

“I think it’s effecting your memory already. Wait no, it’s affecting. Whatever. Words.” Tsukumoya jabbed him with his finger. “Point is, you’re a worse drunk than me. By farrrr.”

“Am not” Hackey said in a sing-song voice, still grinning. “Not, not, notttttt. Ya just don’t wanna admit you are ridiculoussss.”

“I don’t think you of allllll people have the right to call me ridicu- ridiculu- ridicululou- you don’t have the right to call me anything, alright?”

“Ya can’t stop meeeee” Hackey giggled, literally fucking _giggled._ Okay, maybe he was a bit wasted. A bit. “I’ll call ya whatever the hell I wanttttt.”

“Well fuck you too,” Tsukumoya replied, but he was grinning like an absolute idiot. He shouldn’t have been allowed to have that expression on his stupid face, not at all.

Another funny thing about alcohol, that Hackey had known somewhere, inbetween all those data stored in the back of his mind: it lowers inhibitions. It definitely isn’t your friend if you want to think things through before doing them.

So Hackey did not think it through, when he grabbed Tsukumoya’s face, and closed the distance between their lips.

 

Funny thing about kissing: it is weird as all hell.

 

It was awkward, lips and tongues, and neither of them really knew what they were doing, and honestly, part of Hackey wondered what the big deal about this was - but there was a part of this, that felt like something electric ran down his spine from the moment their lips touched.

But other than that, it was mostly awkward.

And Tsukumoya did not pull back from the kiss. Quite the opposite, actually.

Hackey did let him go though, and for a few moments, he had no idea what to say. So he just let go of Tsukumoya’s face, and said the first thing that came to his mind.

 

“I think I need another drink. What ‘bout ya?”

“Y’know I thinkkkk that’s probably a sign we’ve had enough. Probably.”

“Ya can’t tell me what I should do” Hackey grumbled, slumping down on his chair, deflated. “Yanno, I think they’re gonna kick us out if we don’t order more, and just… sit here. Bitchin.”

“Maybe we should think about leaving, then? While we can still actually stand?”

“Yeaaaa, probably. Ain’t a bad idea. I can’t believe I just agreed with you.”

“Firs’ time for everything.” Tsukumoya raised his eyebrows. “As we’re learning tonight, apparentlyy.” He smirked. “Really, QJAWSEID? What even _was_ that?”

“One: that still ain’t my name. Two: ‘twas a kiss, ya sad virgin. Three: shut your whore mouth, ya kissed me back.”

“So I’m a sad virgin but I’ve got a whore mouth?” Tsukumoya nodded dubiously. “Seems legit. And you say that like you’re _not_ an equally sad virgin. Even sadder, perhaps.”

“Well ya keep sucking this city’s dick, and everyone knows it doesn’t count if it’s oral, soooo…”

“I’m fairly sure it _does_ count and anyway the city doesn’t _have_ a dick. It’s a _city_. Obviouslyyy. And you didn’t deny being an even sadder virgin, either, so what does that make you?”

“Well two days ago we didn’t have dicks either.” Hackey snorted. “So I’m just sayin’, ya can never know what’s gonna happen.”

At that Tsukumoya burst out laughing. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe you...can’t believe you said that. I’m going to pretend I didn’t notice the implici- _implication_ while judging you profusely.”

“Ain’t that what ya always do? Either way I didn’t imply jackshit, so whateverrrrr” Hackey pushed himself to his feet. Whoa. Dizzy. “Drinkin’ this much miiiiight not have been the smartest idea we ever had, yanno.”

“You don’t say.” Tsukumoya rolled his eyes and then got to his feet, offering Hackey an arm. “You want a hand?”

“If ya turn out to be even less stable and we both fall over, I’ll… I’ll… do somethin’. I’ll think up somethin’ clever. And painful.” Hackey muttered, but did take Tsukumoya’s arm. Because alcohol. and inhibitions.

“I’m hurt that you’d even suggest that. I’m sure we’ll do fine.”

And they did.

They only fell over twice on the way to the door. Which, all things considered, wasn’t all that bad.

Although Tsukumoya did try to pull the door while on their way out too, which was, quite frankly, the best fucking revenge in the world. Even if Hackey had nothing to do with it. Still counts.

 

-

 

Tsukumoya regretted many things. Drinking so much being one of them. He had known immediately that trying to keep pace with QAWSED was a terrible idea because QAWSED was an idiot but he did it anyway. May as well experience human things.

 

Including kissing, according to QAWSED. A rather overrated activity, all weird sensations and _liquid_ but it did cause a marked increase in heart rate that didn’t feel altogether bad, or perhaps that was just the alcohol. If he was going to kiss someone it may as well be QAWSED, he had no other frame of reference and so couldn’t judge Tsukumoya’s attempts to kiss him. Which was always a bonus - he didn’t need a critique of this right now. Or ever, in fact.

 

“Where did you say your hotel was again?” Tsukumoya managed, finding it increasingly harder to filter his thoughts out of binary. Alcohol was a horrible idea. Humans were an insane species to drink it.

 

 _...tomorrow he was going to learn what a hangover felt like firsthand oh God he was not looking forward to that_.

 

“QAWFJSKL?” He was partly doing this on purpose now. Only partly, because his tongue (why was he thinking of it as his tongue? No! _The body’s_ tongue) wouldn’t obey him properly. “I asked about your hotel? Though I dunno why, seein’ as you never listen to me, d’you?”

“That still ain’t my name” QAWSED grumbled, leaning on Tsukumoya’s side, still not letting go of his arm. “Dunno. I think I didn’t even book a hotel. Don’t think I did…? I rememmmmberrr looking up hotels, buuut then my phone diiiied. Then I met youu. And got distracted. Soooo it’s your fault I don’t have a hotel. Duh.”

“You didn’t even book a hotel?” Tsukumoya shot him a look. “What are your priorities?” He smirked. “Am I reeaaally that distracting, then?”

“Yanno, finding out you’re a bitch-ass liarrrr who didn’t even tell me he is in the same position as me is prettty distracting. As is your faccce. Your face is wasted on youuuu.”

“What’ss that suppo- supposed to mean?” He found himself grinning, even as his stomach churned. Next time, he was giving the alcohol a miss. “Ohhh, was that a _compliment_? Is that how you compliment people?”

“That ain’t a fuckin’ compliment” QAWSED’s face flushed - alcohol? Embarrassment? Both? “It is a fact. It ain’t fair that you ended up looking decentishhhhh while i’m a fuckin’ nerd. I even have glasses. Do ya have any idea how horrible glasses are? My nose is in painnnnn. It ain’t comfortable at allll. But I can’t see shit without them. This body needs better… uh…. forgot the word…. uhhhh the optical sensors. Yea. Better of those. A pair of those. Better. Yup. Gotta write complaint letter to Nebula ‘bout it.”

“Eyes,” Tsukumoya remarked offhandedly. “I thinkkk they’re called eyes. Who knows, though?” He was mostly being sarcastic, but there was genuinely part of him questioning his word choice. _Was_ it eyes? Probably. Could he ever be 100% sure though?

Not right now he couldn’t.

“Yes. Eyessss. Probably. Or nottt. Yeux. Szemek. Oculi. Augen. Whyyyy oh whyyyy do humans have so many languagessss? Silly humans. Silly silly humanssss.” QAWSED was outright giggling, still clinging to Tsukumoya’s arm. “Humans are sooo sillyy. Silly things. With languages annnndddd, that kissing thing. Man wasn’t that weiiirrrrddd? Why are humans into that? Weeeiiirrrrd.”

“I’m not suuuure, buttttt seeing you were the one that started it soooo…so that means it’s, it’s, it’s your fault, isn’t it?” Tsukumoya almost overbalanced, no thanks to QAWSED and his general gangliness on that one, teetering headlong into a perfectly innocuous passerby.

In a bartender suit.

 _Fuck_.

“Can’t blame me for shitttt” QAWSED was seemingly unaware of the situation they quite literally walked into. Of course he was. “Sidessss, I miight have started it, but I didn’t hear ya complain, so it’s just as much your fuckin’ fault as mine.”

Tsukumoya tried to cough subtly but he hadn’t really got a handle on that right now and ended up having a full-on coughing fit while trying to make QAWSED notice the somewhat imminent danger that was staring them in the face and scowling, veins visibly pulsing in pent-up frustration. This was bad. Exceptionally so. And QAWSED, bless him, _still_ didn’t seem to have noticed. Tsukumoya elbowed him. Multiple times. Had to get his attention somehow.

“Don--- don’t fuckin poke me? Fuckin’ jabbin me. Jammin? Jemmin? Jeb-jab-job. Point is, don’tcha do it. Stop bein’ a bitch. Wait, I think that’s in your fuckin programme to be a bitch. Still don’t do that.”

“I don’t know him,” Tsukumoya said, letting go of Hackey’s arm and stepping away. “He is nothingggg to do with me, Haneji- wait, no that’s your… family _thing_ . The other one, but...y’know _smaller_. Heijaw - wait I mean, Heiwajima-san. So sorry. You can leave me out of this. None of this was my idea.”

“Biiitch?!” QAWSED had the gall to act offended. Or was actually offended. Not like that really counted right now. “That ain’t what ya said when ya had your tongue in my mouth. Mostly ya didn’t say anythin’ bc of aforr… uhhh… well said thing. Of tongue. In my mouth. And stop ignoring meeee!”

Naturally, none of this was having a particularly calming effect on Shizuo. Whatsoever. If anything he looked more irate. Tsukumoya winced pre-emptively, well-aware that an explosion was on the way, if QAWSED didn’t shut his mouth, and possibly even if he _did_. They’d probably passed the point of no return right now.

“Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you,” Tsukumoya muttered, shrugging. “Because I didddd. Repeatedly. So you only have yourself to blame here.”

“Huh? Warn for wha--”

“SHUT UP!” Shizuo yelled suddenly, cutting QAWSED off, giving him enough warning to turn and see him rip the ‘no right turn’ sign out of the ground, the metal buckling in his hands as he swung it like a bat, sending QAWSED flying half a block. Tsukumoya winced again, this time in the aftermath of what had happened. Shizuo eyed him up for a moment and took a step toward him, at which point Tsukumoya was wishing he’d never spoken to QAWSED at all, let alone gone out for drinks. And definitely wishing he wasn’t human. Being human was a terrible idea. Why did anyone do it?

A voice interrupted, saving him from his fate. “Hey, Shizuo! It’s kinda late, we need to be at the office early tomorrow. You should get some rest.”

 _Thank all heaven and earth for Tom_. Voice of reason as always.

“Oh. OK, sure.” Shizuo dropped the road sign as abruptly as he’d picked it up and shot Tsukumoya one last look over his sunglasses before walking away.

Tsukumoya exhaled.

It occurred to him that he really should be worried about QAWSED - yeah, worried. Human bodies _were_ fragile and being hit by a road sign was supposedly not good for them.

He headed over to give him a hand, dust him down and find somewhere for the idiot to stay.

“Told you,” he muttered. “You can’t say I didn’t fucking _try_ . You just...y’just werrrren’t listened- uh, listen _ing_ to me, were you? _Idiot_.”

QAWSED was lying on the floor, glasses a few steps away from him somewhere, eyes widened. “That ain’t true. Pokin’ me with your elbow ain’t warnin’. Ow. Help. I think I got hit by a tank.”

“What did you want me to say? ‘Congratululations, you just broke one of Ikebukuro’s most obvious rules. Brace yourself for impending roadsign’? ‘Run?’ You - neither of us couldn’t outrun him sober, let alone after everything we’ve had. Best I could hope for was you’d realise your mistake and apologise. And you didn’t. So you get to enjoy the authentic Ikebukuro experience instead. Something, isn’t it?” He snorted. “You know, funny thing. Orihara has nothing on us online. Can’t track us down, doesn’t even stand a chance. But out here, he actively seeks out fights with Shizuo. Isn’t that something?”

“Cause Orihara is a fuck. Ow. Can’t we go and bother him instead? Or just plug me back online pleeeease.”

“If I knew how to plug either of us back online, don’t you think I’d be doing that right now? Bothering Orihara seems like a much more reasonable goal.” Really what they needed to be doing was finding QAWSED a place to stay. But the opportunity to screw around with Izaya was not one that would come around twice. He couldn’t just pass that one up.

“You’re a bitch, and you’re in love with this city, why wouldn’t ya want to experience it as human and shit?” QAWSED grumbled, slowly pushing himself up to sitting position, wincing. Coordination in general didn’t seem like his forte, but alcohol probably did not help, although Tsukumoya felt a bit more sober after the terror he just went through. A bit. “I need my… my…” QAWSED gestured to his own face. “Glasses. Shit.”

Tsukumoya reached for them and attempted to place them gently on QAWSED’s face, nearly stabbing his eye out in the process but getting there eventually, ruffling QAWSED’s ridiculous hair when he was done. The irritation on his face made Tsukumoya smile. He looked cute like that, from a purely objective, aesthetic standpoint; in fact, this entire human body situation was hilarious given that QAWSED looked like a lanky, adorable child. Offering him a hand, he helped him get to his feet, accidentally ending up with QAWSED clinging to him. The height difference didn’t help one bit.

“Could you possibly try being shorter?” he mumbled, not really thinking about what he was saying until the words had already left his mouth. “Please forget what I just said. Please.”

QAWSED giggled, because of course he did. “No can doooo. Ya can put in a complaint with fuckin’ Nebula. That’s what I’m plannin’ to do too. I mean ya get the hot body and I get this… _this,_ that shit ain’t fair.”

“I think it’s fair,” Tsukumoya replied, smirking. “I think it’s very fair. Besides, it’s not like you ended up with an awful body. It’s pretty adorable.”

“Did ya just call me cuuuuute?”

“Firlsty- I mean, _firstly_ , you called me hot,” retorted Tsukumoya, reddening slightly and cursing human reactions, involuntary reactions were the worst. “And secondly, I’m speaking purely from an - from an objective standpoint, right. Objectively. Your personality is something of a detractor though.”

“Ruuuude bitch. Was that a bluuuush?” QAWSED grinned, once again putting his face _way too close_ to Tsukumoya’s. He clearly had issues with personal space, and drunkness did not help this state of his. “Siiides, ya kissed me bacckk. So that ain’t fuckin objectiiiiive.”

“You started it,” Tsukumoya muttered. “Excuse me for rolling with your bullshit this once. It was an experiment, trying out human things. Nothing more. Unless, of course, you had emotional investment?”

“This once my assss. You go with my bullllshit mooore often than you admit. Bitccch. ‘Sides that ain’t a conclusive experiment if like, both of us are inebr.. ibre… inbe… uhhh, drunk.”

“So you’re suggesting you want to try this again?” Tsukumoya raised his eyebrows and laughed.

“I ain’t suggestin’ shit. Just sayin’. You’re the one who keeps sayin’ you did this as an experiment. In which case it was a pretty shitty experiment.”

“Fine then. We can...we can try this again. Some time. Whenever.”

“Surrre, whateverrr. Soooo how should we… uhhh… mess with Orihara? We gotta be morrre carefulll. He can find these bodies can’t he? I mean he ain’t _that_ bad is he?”

“Oh, believe me. He is _exactly_ that bad. We do need to be careful. But he’s got enough enemies not to suspect us.” Tsukumoya shrugged vaguely. “I know where he lives, if that helps. We could pay him a friendly visit.” He couldn’t even keep a straight face, breaking down into laughter immediately after suggesting it.

“I ain’t meant like… bad as in…. bad, but bad as in _bad._ Geddit? I mean like uhhh…” QAWSED frowned, trying to find the words. “I meant like bad at… finding people. Like I meant to say like. He could find us, he isn’t bad at that. And not like. General shittery. Words, words words. Dunno. Uhhhh I guess we could? Visit. Damn…” QAWSED trailed off into unintelligible mutterings, obviously losing his train of thought.

“I dunno, he’s never figured out what the deal is with me and I’ve been in touch with him for years. Since he was in high school or something. I think we can visit. Think of something we can do when we get there?”

“Dunno? Blast music loudly from his corridor? Or organize a furry convention into his apartment.”

“I wish I didn’t know where to find furries in Ikebukuro on such short notice,” Tsukumoya groaned. “Let’s just go with the first plan. Easier. Less effort. Not that the second doesn’t sound... _interesting_.”

“Bitch, I only have interesting ideas. Alrighty then~ uhh…. which way?”

Even drunk and barely able to concentrate, Tsukumoya knew that he knew his city. He could picture the route almost precisely, intuitively. “It’s this way.” He pointed. “He lives in Shinjuku, because when he sets foot in Ikebukuro, the nearest vending machine decides to say hi. Which is always entertaining. It’s not that far from here. I...don’t think it is, anyway. It _shouldn’t be_. Unless someone on google maps lied and fiddled with the distances. Trust me. I know where we’re going.”

“Silly Tsukumoya, vending machines can’t speak” QAWSED giggled, okay, definitely not sober yet. At all. Despite being hit by the road sign. “Wellll if we get lost, I’m never gonna let ya live that down, yanno. Sooo proud of this city an’ shit. It’d be hilarious to get lost.”

“If we get lost, it’ll be in Shinjuku, not Ikebukuro,” Tsukumoya muttered. “I know Ikebukuro perfectly. There’s nothing wrong with how well I know Ikebukuro. Shinjuku, well...mostly. We need to...get the train? Yes. The train. We should go there now.”

“If ya sayyy soooo~” QAWSED chuckled, leaning on Tsukumoya’s side still. But at least they didn’t fall over anymore. “Do ya know how public transport works? I hate transports. The plannneee sucked big time too, yanno.”

“I resent your implication. Of _course_ I know how public transport works. There’s...money involved. And tickets. And...and the train…” The body’s brain ran out of words. “The train goes whoosh,” he finished lamely. “See? I know better than you for sure.”

“Plane goes whoosh too that ain’t helpin’ much!”QAWSED complained, giggling. “Train goes whoosh. I dare you, I _double dare you_ to put that into your next book, lmao.” Yes, he really did say lmao out loud. Because of course he did. This was QAWSED.

“I don’t take dares from immature children,” Tsukumoya retorted stubbornly. “Or at all. C’mon. If you want to get there any time this year, it’d be an idea for _you_ to get a move on. Ugh. I probably _could_ have time to convincingly organise a furry convention at his place, put his name on all the invites, and have time to sit back and snooze before we even get there, at the rate you’re going.” He glared at QAWSED before he even said anything. “And no, I won’t do that. Not now anyway. If you’re going to pull something like that, you can’t half-ass it while drunk. Got to make it...impressive, right? At least, that’s my philolosophy. I’m sure if we’d had access to alcohol online you’d half-ass _everything_ while under the influence. I have far better judgement than that.”

“Booorrrinnnnnggg.” QAWSED said in a sing-song voice. “Alsooo, ya kissed me back. What does that say ‘bout your judgement, huhhh? Kissin’ back an immature chiiiiiiild apparently. Lolz. You’re such a hyp… hypa…. hyppolit.”

“Alcohol is to blame for my momentary lapse. And as I said, it was an experiment so...so you can just shut up, _Quentin_ , because you started it.” Tsukumoya smirked. “Oh yeah, I saw your ID when they checked it because nobody believed you’re old enough to drink. I saw your ridiculous names.” He practically giggled. “ _Quentin_ Somethin’ beginning wi’ A, Somethin’ beginning wi’ W, Somethin’ beginning wi’ S uh...another Somethin’ wi’ an E this time...Donaghue or somethin’. Spelling Q-A-W-S-E-D. Hilarious. I suppose it’s still pronounced ‘Keyboard’ or however you insist it is, hm?” They almost walked past the station, he was so busy bitching at QAWSED. Which was no excuse. “At least I already had a reasonable human-sounding name alreadyy.”

“Ya biiiiitch. Ya continued it. Still countsss. Just as fuckin’ blameful in this as I am.” QAWSED gasped when he heard Tsukumoya spell out his _name_. “That is indeed hilarious but the credit ain’t mine this time. Doubs’ idea. And fuck youuuuu it would be easier to pronounce it Keyboard, but noooo, your bitch-ass keeps keysmashing. With your fuckin’ mouth.”

“It is pronounced Keyboard in _no_ languages, no matter what you say. You can’t just string together letters and claim they’re pronounced differently because of some completely tenuous reason you pulled out of your ass.” Tsukumoya folded his arms stubbornly. “That’s just how it works. I don’t make the rules. I will call you Keyboard when hell freezes over and _Hackey_ ,” he pulled a face, as if it were somehow distasteful to even say, “Literally never. _Ever_.”

QAWSED’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses, and then pushed himself away from Tsukumoya’s arm, where he had been clinging until now. Which almost caused both of them to topple over. Almost. “At least I fuckin’ call you your name, yanno? And ain’t being a rude bitch ‘bout it. Well. Not terribly. My name is my fuckin’ name. Bitch.”

Tsukumoya felt a little guilty at that (only a little - this was only QAWSED after all, they were bitchy to one another all the time, and besides, he did have a point about the pronunciation thing so…), as if he’d crossed a line. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any offence. I didn’t think before I said it. I won’t do it again.”

Now that made QAWSED look geniunely taken aback, eyes widening - and then he walked into the station door. “Ow. God, physical forms are so…. so…. _ugh,_ am I riiiiight.” He whined, fixing his glasses. “Either way uhhh, it’s…. okay…? Ya literally never fuckin’ apologise so Imma gonna write this up to the alcohol too ‘kay?”

Tsukumoya nodded, all too eager to pin it on that. “Probably. I’m glad we’re good though. Believe it or not, I do...actually enjoy our banter, y’know?” He shrugged vaguely, a little embarrassed by the admission. Yeah, it probably _was_ the alcohol talking now. Being this open, it wasn’t something he did. Ever. “Never mind.”

“I… right back at’cha...?” QAWSED said awkwardly, looking away, right at the traintracks instead. “So uhh… train ride…?”

“Yeah,” Tsukumoya nodded, glad of the topic change. “Train ride.”

 

-

 

 _Train goes whoosh_ turned out to be a pretty accurate description, but Tsukumoya managed to neglect telling Hackey about the scornful looks they got when two drunk young people staggered on the train. Hackey had no idea how did Tsukumoya even get their tickets because he got distracted by the maps on the wall. So confusing to keep track of those, with eyes - he never had problems with maps online, he could just understand them within moments. Now? Now he had to slowly look over them, and let his painfully small human brain process them. So slow - how could people get along with slow brains like this? Not to mention the alcohol in his system didn’t help shit with processing information either. Why did humans like to do this?

Also the train was quick, and while at first he tried to look outside, he realised his stomach did not like this. At all. _Definitely_ side-effect of the alcohol, and him starting to sober up. And the pain everywhere in his body from the road sign. He could have continued his life without feeling that, thank you.

So he just looked up, to the roof of the train, without saying a word, until Tsukumoya told him it was _probably_ time to get off.

Shinjuku was new - and he knew that while Tsukumoya was an obsessed nerd about Ikebukuro, Shinjuku was different.

“I hope we ain’t fuckin’ getting lost. I do not want to spend the whole night wanderin’ ‘bout Tokyo, yanno.”

“We’re not,” Tsukumoya snapped, visibly annoyed his concentration had been broken. “It may not be Ikebukuro but that doesn’t suddenly mean I don’t know shit. I know where Orihara is living. He’s one of these people you have to keep an eye on at all times. Who do you even think I am?”

“I think you’re a bitch and a drunk bitch. That’s what I think. But whateverrr, if ya say so.”

“That’s true, I’m both those things. I do know where we’re going though. You’re lucky I didn’t just leave you at that bar to fend for yourself, you’d never be able to find your way anywhere like this. Or just generally. What I’m saying is - appreciate me.”

“What? Ya want me to fuckin’ kiss ya again?” Hackey snorted. “Forgeddit. Yea, yea, I am fuckin’ appreciatin’ ya. Happy?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Tsukumoya nodded, then clarified, “For the record I was saying yes to being happy, rather than being kissed again.”

“Ya don’t say” Hackey rolled his eyes. “Either way, are we there yet?”

“Nearly. If you could stop distracting me for five minutes, that’d be a nice way of showing your appreciation, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, fuck yourself” Hackey grumbled, and just pulled out his phone instead.

Fuck Tsukumoya, if he had decided to be a bitter bitch instead, he could just check on the others. The ones who did appreaciate _him,_ thank you very much.

Doubs hadn’t been lying about those memes Yellow made about Hackey’s body. Oh my god.

That asshole was a dead man, as soon as Hackey was back online. Well, he definitely has a long string of trolling to look forward to. Fuck him.

And he missed Town of Salem night. Fuck Nebula.

Of course paying attention to his phone made him walk into another pole. Again. Fuck poles.

“Ow. I hate everythin’.”

“It’s this way. Try not to walk into any poles,” Tsukumoya said snidely, because _what a bitch_. Why did he have to be this way? Ugh.

“That ain’t your buisness I’ll walk into as many fucking poles I fuckin’ want” Hackey was now just childish, even he noticed, but he didn’t care. Tsukumoya was seriously starting to grate on his nerves. And another drawback of physical forms: he couldn’t just quit out of the conversation and leave Tsukumoya’s fucking chatbox behind and do whatever he wanted to do in the whole wide internet.

“If that’s what you want to do, who am I to stop you? Look, there’s a pole there, if you were searching for another one. And one there. There’s a lot of poles. You must be spoilt for choice.”

“I’m going to push _you_ into a fuckin’ pole if ya don’t shut your mouth. Let’s just hurry up and ruin Orihara’s night instead.”

For a moment Hackey thought Tsukumoya was about to bitch right back at him, but he didn’t. “Alright then,” he said. “It’s this building here. Follow me.”

Getting in the building wasn’t actually that hard, or at least not for Tsukumoya. And they took the elevator up, and Hackey couldn’t help grinning. Alright, so humans had limited ways of transportation, as slow and silly they were, they still figured themselves out.

Elevators seemed to be one of the more enjoyable ones.

“Soooo I bet he has a great view from up there doesn’t he?”

“It’s sickening. He doesn’t deserve it.” Tsukumoya scowled. “He of all people doesn’t deserve it. I can think of countless people who would make better use of the space.”

“Well, I would say _like you_ but that ain’t true is it? Like you wouldn’t change your virtual place for a nice apartment now would ya?” Hackey shook his head as the elevator opened with a ding. And on the corridor’s windows, the city was indeed very pretty. Tokyo in the nighttime was apparently even prettier than daytime Tokyo. Apparently especially from up above. “A’right… I gotta hand this to ya. This is actually ain’t that bad.”

“And we’re not even in ‘bukuro itself.” Tsukumoya stared out of the window. “It’s something, isn’t it? In person, well, it’s more than even I expected.”

“Whoo boy. If we’d go up high with ya in ‘bukuro, ya might completely have a Blue Screen of Death” Hackey snickered as he glanced at Tsukumoya. And then he wasn’t sure Tsukumoya did not completely Blue Screen out, as he was staring out the window, barely even blinking. Hackey moved a hand, waving it in front of Tsukumoya’s face. “Hey there, can we get a move on?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just...it’s…” he waved a hand to try and summarise his feelings. “Never mind. It’s nothing. I think my brain is lagging slightly. Shit no, the body’s brain. This is someone’s brain and not mine.” Tsukumoya was almost frantic with regards to this. “Not my brain. Need to get back online soon. This is...not good.” He was breathing quickly, if it was anyone else Hackey might have taken it for some sort of panic attack. But that didn’t sound right. “I’m fine,” Tsukumoya said, leaning against the window. “Alcohol is...bad idea”

Hackey just looked at Tsukumoya quietly before sighing, and taking Tsukumoya’s elbow. “No, this ain’t good, and it was a shitty idea let’s agree never to do that again, mmmmkay? Also, c’mon. We have an annoying information broker to wake up.” Hackey had to distract Tsukumoya from… whatever the hell was he doing right now. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“That sounds like a good plan,” Tsukumoya nodded his assent, catching his breath and seeming to relax somewhat. “You’re good at being annoying, so I’ll let you take it away.” As if that were the only reason he wanted to hang back slightly. As if there were nothing wrong now.

“Yeaa, yeaa. Watch the master at work. Nerd.” Hackey chuckled, and as he moved towards Izaya’s apartment, the smile disappeared from his face for a few moments. As fun as this had been they are gonna have to figure out the answer to the _how to get back_ question. They weren’t meant to be like this.

Either way, he got out a small speaker for the phone, which worked via bluetooth, and simply dropped it in one of the plants on the corridor, just in front of Orihara’s apartment door. And a few other speakers into other plants. Then rang the doorbell, and ran back, like the child he was, pulling Tsukumoya behind the corner, because of course he did. Then he pressed play on his phone.

And so he let Levan Polkka start to play on maximum volume. Because hey. Why not go for one of the biggest earworms in meme history, right? Right.

“I’m pretty certain half the building can hear you,” Tsukumoya muttered. “That’s melting _my_ ears.”

“What? Can’t hear you over the awesome classic music” Hackey grinned at him. “Either way, do I look like I care ‘bout the other residents, huh?”

Tsukumoya smirked, which shouldn’t have been as reassuring as it was. “You are such a jackass.”

“Why, thank you. It’s always nice to have my efforts appreciated, yanno.”

The music suddenly stopped - Orihara probably came out and managed to find the speaker.

Well. At least, one of them.

“Sayyy, Tsukumoya. Ya get to pick the music for the next one.” Hackey said, handing his phone over.

“If you insist,” Tsukumoya shrugged, typing something into the search bar and not letting Hackey see.

“If I insist? C’mon, who are ya kiddin’? You are enjoyin’ this, so just press play, whatever are ya picking.”

“Fine.” He pressed play and some obnoxious 80s pop song in _Cantonese_ came on. “There we go. The original song was Japanese, but this version is funnier.”

Hackey could barely surpress his laughter, as he doubled over. “Oh my goddd, you are such a hipster troll, I can’t even deal with ya.”

“Better than being such an obvious meme like you,” Tsukumoya replied, but he was still smirking.

“Oh, fuck you” Hackey was also grinning, despite what he was saying. “Now, gimme back my phone.”

Reluctantly Tsukumoya handed it back. “Your turn now. I suppose I’ve got to prepare myself for more subpar memes.”

“Excuuuuuse you, I’ll let ya know, that my memes are always great” Hackey winked at Tsukumoya. “Just watch me.”

They got through a few more songs before they pretty much had to bolt for the elevator, before they got caught by other angry residents. As the elevator doors closed, Hackey was trying to catch his breath from the laughter.

“Damnnn. I needed this. Highlight of this fuckin’ shitstorm let’s be real.”

“Agreed. You know, I think I might go through with your other plan sometime. Organise a furry convention in his apartment. Thanks for that one.” Tsukumoya laughed. “I didn’t think hanging out with you could be so fun. Seems like I owe you an apology.”

“Ah well. I didn’t think you’d get down for your pretentious horse long enough to actually have fun, so I guess we both proved each other wrong, huh? And sure, do it, but I demand a live feed of the convention, when that happens, ya hear?”

“Will do. By the way, fun though it is wandering around aimlessly with you, I think we should...y’know, rest? I hear humans need that. You didn’t book a hotel so...you’d be looking for somewhere to stay, correct?”

“Yea… on both fronts. I’m gettin’ reaalll tired, and I’m gonna need a place to stay” Hackey scratched the back of his head tiredly. These bodies were inconvenient, which was nothing new, and his impulsivity really stopped him from booking a hotel. So now he was in this situation.

“You can come stay at my place. Turn your phone off before going inside though, Nebula are definitely monitoring it. You wouldn’t believe how many bugs I found within the first few hours of being human.” Tsukumoya said, nonchalant about it, like it was something that happened every day. “It’s actually a nice enough apartment. They put some effort into it. I wonder who decorated it? They don’t actually have that bad taste, whoever they are.”

...and as far as impulsivity goes, can Hackey just say _hahaha whoops._ It really didn’t even occur to him to check for bugs, and his hand tightened around his phone as well. He wasn’t about to let Tsukumoya know how much he fucked up, though. He really needed to figure out how to concentrate now. It was a matter of security. “Ah uh… a’right. The one I woke up in was… ehhh, not somethin’ I would have picked out for myself. Then again, most of this thing isn’t somethin’ like I would have picked out even if I _had_ to become human, yanno? Ya get what I mean?”

“Yeah. I get you.” Tsukumoya offered him his arm again. “My place it is.”

After the briefest hesitation, Hackey took Tsukumoya’s arm. He could never know. He still wasn’t completely sober, so he had to be careful, right?

Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES THIS CHAPTER REALLY HAPPENED, WE ACTUALLY DID WRITE THIS. ALL OF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. WE WENT THERE.
> 
> YOU ARE WELCOME.


	6. Phase Three - Part Three

Okay, so, hangover was an absolute bitch. And so was sleeping on a couch. Because he was lanky, and it was hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Honestly, if he would not have been that tired last night, he would have bitched that Tsukumoya should have slept on the couch, because he was fucking tiny, but nooo. They pretty much both passed out. Damn inconvenient bodies.

So, he woke up. With a headache, and aching neck and aching back and aching… everything. Great. Just great.

He went to the bathroom, washed his face, and just looked at his own, ridiculously freckled face in the mirror. His face. It was his own damned face, and this still didn’t turn out to be a bad dream.

Alright. He had to focus. Gotta figure out the next step.

Honestly, it was quite obvious.

He got dressed (he did take clothes with himself, after all, he wasn’t that underprepared for this trip), colours clashing as ever (not to mention his shirt now said Meme Trash which is - hello, fitting), and just grabbed one of Tsukumoya’s laptops.

And left a post-it note in it’s place.

 

_ I went down to the cafe in the corner. Not the one we met, the other one. Where there are this many coffee shops? Also, I’m borrowing one of your laptops thx~ _

 

And he doodled a little mouse to the end of the paper as a signature. Not like anyone else could have left it there, with horrible handwriting that he had.

Before exiting the apartment, he did flip an empty wall off with one hand. In case that one had a camera Tsukumoya did not find. Or something.

He was sure Nebula got the message either way.

 

He got a coffee. Which tasted awful, by the way, so he just took a sip and let it rest on the table instead. Ew. Either way, he ordered something, so they couldn’t throw him out, right?

Before setting up the laptop though, he had to take care of something else. That is, taking his phone apart.

He knew how phones worked, and he knew how to get rid of the physical bug inside it. He got maybe a bit too attached to the first electronics he got while in this ridiculous human body, so sue him, he wasn’t gonna throw it out, and just buy a new one. No, that was too much of a Tsukumoya thing to do.

So he removed the physical bug, and moved on to the next step. The tracking programmes.

It took him half an hour to purge every app from his phone that Nebula could use to track him. They weren’t gonna outhack  _ him _ of all people. Beings. Whatever. It was hard to think about it, what he was, right now. AI? Vampire? Human? Too confusing, and he already had a headache.

So he set up the laptop, and started to look around.

Ten fingers were still painfully slow, especially when tired. Two eyes were very slow to access information.

But he could still become untraceable, he could still get into databases most people couldn’t.

“I’m in” he muttered under his nose, and couldn’t help smiling.

Right.

Time to figure out who their current bodies belonged to previously.

 

-

 

When Tsukumoya woke up his head hurt and QAWSED was nowhere in sight. For a moment he panicked, terrified that Nebula had somehow, for some unknown reason, struck in the night, taken QAWSED for their own devious, ever-inexplicable ends. This concerned him so much, he decided to sacrifice the security of one of his laptops and see if he could find anything. And of course, one of the laptops was missing; instead there was a note from QAWSED, delightful as ever, explaining where he’d gone. Either they were particularly dedicated Nebula employees, who knew precisely who to get into character and emulate QAWSED to the letter - or badly drawn rodent (a true talent indeed, though not one anyone actually  _ needed _ ), or he’d been worrying over nothing. Probably the latter.

 

He relaxed. Insofar as one could relax, trapped in a hungover, half-awake human form, that really just wanted to bundle itself up in blankets and go back to sleep. It was hard disobeying that impulse, dragging the body to the shower (apparently against its will, considering how many times he fell over). But he did, wincing at the cold water. Showers needed instruction guides, he decided. When he got back online he was going to use all his influence to get that motion passed somehow. It was important. Of course, he would no longer need to use showers but it would be an act of generosity on behalf of humanity. 

 

...interesting how showers caused the mind to wander. So that was true. He’d wondered about that.

 

After finishing up, he threw another outfit together with the unusual array of options inside his wardrobe, managing to find a pair of trousers closer to the right length (read: less absurdly long). He went with a shirt that hadn’t decided what colour it wanted to be - the top half was black, the bottom half was red. Someone had been paid to design this. Oh well. Over the top, he opted for the same brown and orange cardigan. It was comfortable, nothing more. Not like he was growing fond of an item of clothing, that level of sentimentality would be ridiculous. Ridiculously human. He refused to concede to it. 

 

Anyway, leaving QAWSED unattended was beyond unwise, it was utterly idiotic. So now he had to go find him. Great. Why couldn’t he just stay in sight? It was like minding a child. A ridiculous child who signed letters with ‘thx~’ and then doodled a mouse. Definitely a child. At least he’d said where he was. Assuming he’d told the truth and this wasn’t going to be some kind of treasure hunt (implying QAWSED classed as some kind of treasure) that would inevitably end in the words ‘Tsukumoya Shinichi is an idiot’ written in sauce on the table of a cheap diner somewhere, going by how QAWSED seemed to operate. He wasn’t holding out much hope on him  _ actually _ being in the cafe he’d mentioned, that was for certain.

 

What do you know? He was.  _ Now there’s a surprise _ .

 

“Coffee is awful. 0/10, would not recommend” QAWSED said, wrinkling his nose without even saying good morning. Because of course he did. He didn’t have any manners. “Also why do humans like alcohol if it causes this the next mornin’? Makes no sense if ya ask me.”

“Need I remind you getting drunk was your idea?” Tsukumoya was compelled to point out. He wasn’t going to stand for any kind of revisionism where that was concerned. “You only have yourself to blame.”

“Need I remind you that ya went with my bullshit? You were all high an’ mighty, bein’ all  _ oooooh I will not drink much someone has to keep an eye on youuuu _ but then ya got yourself fuckin’ wasted as well.”

Tsukumoya rolled his eyes (already, this early into a conversation? Had to be a record). “That was an experiment. Not one I intend to replicate, wonderful though hangovers are. I wonder what kind of teas they serve here. I hear they’re supposed to be good for getting over this kind of thing.”

“Experiment. Riiiight. Ya sure liked those last night.” QAWSED also rolled his eyes. “Dunno. But could ya get some of that for me too if you are goin’ to check? And then I can show you what I found out. I wasn’t just playin’ on Addictinggames all mornin’, yanno.”

“Last night was last night. And today is today. As to your request, well - that depends on what you found, doesn’t it?” Tsukumoya folded his arms.

“I may have figured out somethin’ about how Nebula did what they did. Good enough for ya?”

Tsukumoya stared. “Alright. This had better be legit. If it’s just another convoluted rickroll-” He stood up, pointing a warning finger at QAWSED. “If this is you being... _ you _ , then I swear I will call Nebula and hand you to them right away.”

“Who else am I supposed to be, but me?” QAWSED complained, feigning being hurt. Quite obviously feigning, with putting a hand over his heart and everything. “Ya wound me. And also…” He grinned, and literally took one of Tsukumoya’s hands, pressing a quick kiss to the back of his hand before letting him go. “Do ya think I’d joke around ‘bout that? Don’t be stupid. Of course it’s legit~”

Tsukumoya jerked his hand away. “I’m glad you’re taking this so seriously. At this rate, we’ll be back online...oh, I don’t know, next year? Neither of us want that, do we?” He sighed. “I’ll go see what they have. Apologies for snapping. I have something of a headache. Not that that’s an excuse. Anyway.” He was starting to feel a little awkward just standing there, so turned and headed to the counter, where he scrutinised their list of teas longer than he perhaps intended before settling on jasmine. Jasmine tea sounded interesting. He headed back with the two drinks and something sweet to snack on. May as well try everything once. Within reason.

When he got back, QAWSED was rocking on his chair, obviously bored - he really didn’t have a good attention span, and the human body definitely didn’t change much of that. If anything, probably made it worse. Nevertheless, seeing Tsukumoya arrive back, he put the legs of his chair back to the ground, and accepted his cup of tea. “Thanks. ‘Kay, so, I was like, might as well try lookin around ‘bout somethin’, yanno? Waitin’ would be killin’ me, and we both wanna go back don’t we? So I tried to look into these guys.” He gestured at themselves. “Like whether they made some homunculi for us to occupy or did we end up becomin’ Body Snatchers? I wanted to find some leads, so like I went into a couple of systems. Yanno, usual shit, usin’ face recognition programs and such. I mean it wasn’t as fast as I woulda liked, but…” He trailed off a bit before shaking his head. “Either way, for a while there was nothin’. Absolutely nothin’. No IDs, no Facebook, not even frikkin’ Myspace, nothin’, so the homunculus theory sounded more plausible, but then I ran into some weird streams that suggested data bein’ deleted. Not just deleted, purged, whoever did it, was good.” QAWSED grinned, fixing his glasses. “Not as good as me, though, so I managed to get stuff back. Check this out.” With this and a few clicks on Tsukumoya’s laptop, he brought up two documents, obviously medical reports, and on the pictures - well, there was no question. It was the bodies they got stuck in. Quite worse conditions, than the present one, though. “Thing is, both of ‘em got into hospitals. Yours somewhere in Osaka, mine in South Germany. Unconscious when found, quickly slipping into coma, not being able to be identified. No one ever came for them, no one ever looked for ‘em. John Does, if ya will. Official reports state eventually hospital stuff pulled the plug on ‘em, basically. What have ya? On the exact same day, less than a week ago. Officially they both got state funerals, but yanno, I would bet one of my servers that if we’d go there, either there wouldn’t even be a grave, or it’d be completely empty. That’s as far as I got. I mean it’s good to know exactly where we got stuck in, ain’t it? That’s the first step to figuring out how to get back. So, whataya say, Mr Judgy McJudgepants? Good enough for ya?”

Reluctantly Tsukumoya nodded. “So they  _ did _ use random people. Though knowing Nebula, that’s hardly surprising. Doesn’t say anything about  _ how _ they did it, I presume? That’d be a little too convenient. But I suppose a congratulations is in order. If you want to keep that laptop and keep digging, feel free. You still could have asked first though. I would have let you use it. I’m not  _ that _ unreasonable, am I?”

“Honestly, if I would have found entire reports about how they did it, I’d be veeeeery suspicious ‘bout that. That woulda been a little bit _ too  _ convenient wouldn’t ya think?” QAWSED shrugged, leaning back in his chair, sipping a little from his tea. And then leaning forward and dumping a lot of sweeteners in it, before continuing. “I woulda asked, but ya were sleepin’. Every now and then I can show some consideration, ain’t that right? But alright. Next time, I’ll just shake you outta bed, is that what you want?” He grinned a little, and honestly, Nebula could really find a body for him that had a grin  _ exactly fitting  _ for QAWSED. That meaning completely obnoxious, promising nothing good. Because that was QAWSED.

“That would be much appreciated,” he replied levelly, not wanting to show him a reaction, give him the satisfaction of it. “Rather than resorting to theft.”

“Stealin’? C’mon, you’re overreacting.” QAWSED rolled his eyes. “I left you a note and everything. That ain’t theft.”

“So what do you call it then?” He raised his eyebrows. “Borrowing without permission? Technically that’s theft.”

“I left ya a note. I did not intend to  _ keep  _ it, don’t be such a drama queen.”

“You’re calling  _ me _ a drama queen?  _ You _ , of all people? I don’t know how you let yourself say that. Do you even hear yourself?”

“I never said I’m not a drama queen, bitch please, I’m a drama royalty as well.” QAWSED rolled his eyes once again. This was a habit both of them seemed to take up quite quickly. “But it doesn’t mean you ain’t one. ‘Cause you are.”

“Still. I would have preferred some warning about what you were doing. You just vanished. It could have been far worse than...than  _ this _ .” He waved a hand to indicate QAWSED sitting in the seat opposite him with terrible posture. “You should be more careful. Frustrating though you are, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

QAWSED opened his mouth and then closed it, before replying. “...uhhh, okay. Fiiine. Next time I won’t just leave a note, but I’ll tell ya. Good enough?”

“Yes. That’d be preferable. Thank you. Safer that way.”

“Yea, yea, whatever” QAWSED sipped his tea again. “So. What next?”

Tsukumoya smirked. “Well, there’s plenty of the city we haven’t seen…”

The only response to this he got was QAWSED smashing his head into the table and groaning, attracting looks from other patrons of the cafe and causing one of the staff to come and ask if he was okay.

Which decided it then. Whether QAWSED liked it or not.

-

Hackey decidedly did not like this new idea that Tsukumoya had. Which wasn’t even a new idea. “New” implies that Tsukumoya did not think about it before, but seeing as Tsukumoya seems unable to think of anything else but his damned city for more than two seconds, this was anything but new. So obviously he would bring up the idea that they could continue checking out the city. Because of-fucking-course.

Ikebukuro was still crowded, people constantly on the move, and Hackey did his best to not run into everyone on the way, with varying success. Could have been easier, he supposed, if he had held onto Tsukumoya’s arm again, but no way in hell. He was too sober for that now, and that was the alcohol’s fault either way last not.

“So. where are we goin’?”

“Sunshine 60. Got to see some more tourist places too. There are many sides to the city, other than purely the dangerous one.”

“Great. Always wanted to see some fuckin’ high buildings” Hackey rolled his eyes. “Yanno, I’d prefer to  _ do  _ somethin’ rather than just sightseein’. Not necessarily the dangerous shit, but yanno. Actually doin’ something else other than standin’ in front of shit and starin’ at it.”

“There’s an indoor theme park in the Sunshine City complex itself. Just your kind of tacky nonsense. There are plenty of things to do. I don’t know what your problem is. You come over here to Ikebukuro and you don’t actually want to look around, it’s just pettiness, plain and simple. Why do I bother even trying?” Tsukumoya rolled his eyes. “If you don’t want to go where I recommend, why don’t you suggest something yourself, perhaps?”

“Wow, bein’ called petty, by the petty queen of pettiness himself. Must be an honor” Hackey snorted. “Is there an arcade in that theme park? My knowledge of Ikebukuro is fairly limited, if ya forgot. I wonder whose fault is that.”

“You could have read my books. Or researched. I don’t hold a monopoly on all data about Ikebukuro, you know. And yes. There is indeed an arcade. You want to go there, I take it?”

“Yadda yadda, shut up. Stop plugging your books. And sure, let’s check it out. Ooooh are there bumper cars too? I wanna drive a bumper car. I mean I sorta want to try  _ driving  _ in general, but I figured bumper cars are more fun. You are allowed to crash into people there without being frowned upon, yanno?”

“I am not letting you near anything of the sort,” Tsukumoya replied flatly. “Not in a million years.”

“What would ya do to stop me?” Hackey grinned. “You are tiny. I betcha I could get there without you stoppin’ me.”

Tsukumoya raised his eyebrows. “Is that something you’re willing to bet? Because I’m sure I could find some way of stopping you.” He was smirking, and that  _ sounded _ a lot like flirting but was totally just Tsukumoya being his bitchy self as always. Either way, Hackey’s face only heated up because of his hangover still affecting him. Totally.

“Sure ya would” Hackey said, turning his eyes away. “Fine, whatever. Let’s see that arcade.”

So they did go into the building, towards the theme park, which… was also full of people. Didn’t people have jobs or school, or whatever? It wasn’t even a weekend, and it was the middle of the day. Humans were weird.

His eyes did stop for a moment on the bumper cars, crashing into each other, people laughing or swearing, and part of him really wanted to go that way, just to see. Just to… just out of curiousity.

_ What would you do, Tsukumoya? How would you stop me? _

In the end, he didn’t. After all, his head was still somewhat in pain, the collisions from the bumper cars would not have been a good idea. Exactly the only reason why he didn’t take off towards the bumper cars, so he just let Tsukumoya lead him towards the arcade.

Right.

Video games were something he was good at, and he was sure that not even the limitations of this human body could hold him back from that, wasn’t that right? He was still… himself. Inside this inconvenient fleshbag, it was still Hackey Mouse, still QAWSED, still the vampire, the officer of the Organization.

The one who actually ruled with video games,  _ or so help him. _

So obviously he picked a rhythm game first, because he was good at that. Well, he was good at a lot of games, but rhythm games were the ones that some people from the Organization tried to ban from game nights, saying that Hackey has an even more unfair advantage of them than usual.

It took a few tries and some swearing to get into it, but on the third try, he managed to control his goddamned hands in time, and he could even zone Tsukumoya out enough to concentrate. He knew patterns, he knew rhythm. It was just the matter of keeping a move of his fingers and hands, and  _ he could fucking do it. _

So he upped the difficulty.

“Really, QAWSED?” Tsukumoya sounded frustrated, and was still trying to say his full name out loud, like a freaking nerd. “I thought it was fine as it was. Did you  _ really _ need to up the difficulty?”

“Yes. Yes, really. Keep up, or drop out, your call.”

“Very well then.” Tsukumoya gritted his teeth, because there was no way he would ever give up to Hackey. He was such a competitive little shit, really, and he liked to pretend he wasn’t childish as fuck. Yeah, right.

“What’s wrong, Tsukumoya? Feelin’ old, yet?” Hackey couldn’t stop grinning. Honestly there was no way to tell which one of them was actually older, still. He could make old man jokes if he wanted, if Tsukumoya wanted to act like an old man.

“Hardly. Just because I don’t act like an obnoxious child…” he trailed off, concentrating intently on the game.

“...just because you don’t act such, according to you, you are still obnoxious” Hackey chuckled, while turning back to the game as well.

“Thank you.”

 

-

 

QAWSED was in his element in the arcade, clearly loving every minute, especially when he won. He was something of a sore winner, rubbing it in excessively and Tsukumoya could only imagine how hellish it must have been for the fellow Organisation members every time game night rolled around. He must have been truly insufferable. Not that he wasn’t always. Still, at least he seemed happy enough. His excitement was a little infectious, even when you were on a losing streak that didn’t seem likely to end itself so you had to resort to distraction - or, to put it simply, blatant cheating.

“Oh look, they’re with the Dollars,” Tsukumoya said midway through  _ yet another _ round on that damn rhythm game. He had been saying this for almost half an hour now and every time QAWSED  _ still _ looked. This time, however, he wasn’t just pointing at random people and relying on probability. The people he had singled out  _ were _ genuine members of the Dollars, from the young woman in the black dress and hat, to her friend with the narrowed eyes and the backpack, to the taller, exhausted-looking man in a beanie, and to their somewhat nondescript driver. He knew them - and they knew of him. He’d read the ‘torture team’s comments on his blog, had interacted with them online. To add coincidence to coincidence, from their conversation it sounded like those two were talking about him, of all people.

“It’s an obvious fake. Ob-vi-ous. It’s a well-known fact that Tsukumoya doesn’t make public appearances or  _ any _ appearances, so your friend can’t have a signed copy of his book.”

“No, no, Yumacchi, he went into the bank to get a card and had no ID and looked exactly like a weird sort of writer. What if he’s  _ actually  _  an immortal? Or a vampire? That one would explain why nobody’s seen him before - he can’t go out in daylight, but stalks Ikebukuro by night!”

“But by your friend’s admission he  _ was _ out in daylight. Immortal is so much more likely-”

“Or just identity thief,” Kadota muttered under his breath.

Tsukumoya looked back at QAWSED and couldn’t help smiling smugly. “See? I told you my books were popular.”

“Popular with the city’s residents, probably” QAWSED muttered back. “Also wow. Thinking you’re a vampire. Unthinkable.”

“They don’t really inhabit reality, honestly,” Tsukumoya replied. “They’re off in their own world of delusion.”

“By the way, of course you are well known in the city. In a few hours everyone will know about your stunt in the bank, and then what will you do?”

Tsukumoya shrugged. “Keep a low profile. Continue as normal. They’ll get over it.”

QAWSED grinned, which was never a good sign. At least not this grin. Tsukumoya was starting to learn the differences between QAWSED’s grins and that was almost more frustrating than the grin itself. Almost.  “Is that so, Tsukumoya?” He asked, in a raised voice. While Yumasaki and the others were exactly walking behind them.

Erika’s eyes widened, Yumasaki’s actually  _ opened _ briefly. “By Tsukumoya, you wouldn’t mean like the writer?” he asked innocuously, so innocent for a guy who played with fire on a regular-ish basis and used manga as inspiration for interrogations. 

Tsukumoya shot QAWSED a glare. He couldn’t lie, not here. “Yes, that would be me.”

The duo’s eyes lit up and even Kadota looked interested. He managed to hold his companions back just before they basically flung themselves at him in excitement.

“Awww, lighten up a little” QAWSED was still grinning, as he slammed on the final button, clearing another level. “You love writing your books so much, be a little happy that you get to meet your fans!”

“Believe me, I’m delighted,” Tsukumoya whispered, then turned to the two and smiled politely. “So...what was it the pair of you wanted? Signatures? An interview.”

“A dance-off!” Erika blurted suddenly. “The DDR machines over there!”

Oh God. He looked at QAWSED and QAWSED was  _ grinning _ . Tsukumoya was so, so tempted to make up a phantom injury or medical condition that would excuse him from participating, his coordination was so poor. Then again, so was QAWSED’s. But then, QAWSED didn’t give a fuck about publicly humiliating himself. He had no shame to begin with. This was  _ precisely _ the kind of thing he’d love, because it would embarrass Tsukumoya and wasn’t that just hilarious. 

Apparently so.

“Sweet! I hope ya two meant a two versus two game. You can’t leave me behind, yanno” QAWSED was still grinning, like Christmas had come early.

“And who would you be, by the way?” Yumasaki asked the question, and QAWSED tilted his head a little before answering.

“The name’s Quentin. I’m an associate of this hermit over here. Responsible that he has some funnnn every now and then. Ya guys have  _ no idea  _ how hard it is to drag him outside” He even shook his head and sighed. “Real trouble, I’m tellin’ ya.”

“Ohhhh, associate~” Erika grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. Kadota nudged her and she stopped, snickering slightly. 

“I’m sorry about her she’s just-”

Tsukumoya waved it off. “Yes. I’m well aware what she’s like. I have seen her blog.” He wondered if that was too much, hinting that he knew full well who they were. Though probably not, given that he was an expert on the city and an information broker.

Well, whatever. It sent Erika into full fangirling mode regardless of how weird it may have been. The fact that QAWSED put his hand on Tsukumoya’s arm, and leaned close to whisper in his ear probably didn’t help anything with that either.

“Careful though~ ya don’t want your city’s occupants to think you are a total creep who stalks everyone do you?” He was close to Tsukumoya’s ear enough that he could feel his breath on his skin, before QAWSED let him go and pulled back.

Erika’s face was almost bright red and she was grinning wickedly. The others looked somewhat concerned. Tsukumoya was hoping to any theoretical god out there that he wasn’t blushing right now. Which he probably was. Damn human bodies and their automatic reactions.

“Ah- you said something about a DDR?” he asked, quickly trying to change the topic. 

“Yes, DDR!” QAWSED grinned, clapping his hand together. “I  _ love  _ DDR.” Tsukumoya was absolutely certain QAWSED never tried DDR. Unless he dragged his vampire friend to a party before coming to Ikebukuro. Then again, trying to follow QAWSED’s logic was useless most of the time.

“So you’re obviously an expert at it,” Tsukumoya replied. “I didn’t know that. When did that happen?” He smiled somewhat pointedly, and QAWSED winked back at him as a reply.

“I’m full of surprises, don’tcha know that already ‘bout me~?”

Seriously, a few more lines like this, and Erika is gonna get a heart attack, judging from her face.

“Tone it down,” Tsukumoya mouthed covertly, as they followed the group over to the DDR. “Please?”

“Ya need to be a bit more specific” QAWSED shrugged. “There’s a lot ‘bout me that people say I should tone down, what do ya mean this time, and why?”

“You know  _ exactly _ what I mean, don’t even pretend you don’t.”

QAWSED grinned again. “Ah yeah. Ya mean  _ that.  _ Well…  _ make me. _ ” And with that, he almost fell over at the edge of the DDR podium, before he managed to collect himself and take his place up there.

“You know, I just might,” Tsukumoya muttered. “So how exactly do we make this work?” There were a lot of arrows. He wasn’t optimistic about any of this.

“It’s just a rhythm game just with legs instead of hands. It can’t be _ that _ hard.”

One hideous loss later, during which QAWSED had quite literally ended up on his face on a number of occasions, often taking Tsukumoya with him, he reluctantly changed his tune. DDR was a form of physical and social torture humans had invented to utterly break and humiliate the victims. And the worst part was, Erika and Yumasaki were infuriatingly good at it. They’d had arms and legs for over a year. They had an unfair advantage. 

Not to mention QAWSED really wasn’t taking this seriously. Tsukumoya was 100% certain QAWSED was sabotaging them.

“So, it turns out rhythm game with legs is harder. Whoops” QAWSED grinned as he stood back on his feet again. “How are ya feelin’? If I judged these guys well, in a few hours the entire internet will know that you suck at DDR. Whoopsies~” He definitely did not look like he was feeling guilty about his part in this.

“Yes, thank you QAWSED. If you could pay attention, please, or I’m sure I can find something else for the internet to talk about.” 

“Like what?” QAWSED rolled his eyes, and bounced a little, as if it would really help with his coordination issues. “Dude, you suck so spectacularly, I’m sure that they are havin’ a blast over there.”

Tsukumoya hesitated slightly, wondering if this was  _ really _ what he was about to do. Apparently so. Sometimes to get even with QAWSED, you had to stoop to his level. And he was the one who had been making flirtatious jokes all day so…

What was there to lose? They couldn’t get any  _ worse _ at DDR. With any luck, this would throw Erika off enough for them to take the next round. So it was a tactical decision, not just infantile pettiness. 

Quelling any doubts, he leaned forward, pulling QAWSED’s face down and kissing him.

The kiss this time was slightly less awkward, probably thanks to the lack of alcohol involved - but there was a lot more flailing, thanks to QAWSED being caught off-guard, and also because of being pulled down, and having those ridiculous long limbs. But despite all of that, QAWSED  _ did _ kiss back, and one of his hands did find it’s way to Tsukumoya’s back. And Tsukumoya was quite sure that the high-pitched squealing behind them came from Erika.

The tactical decision had been a success, then.

The kiss probably lasted a  _ little _ bit longer than it should have been for a purely tactical decision - then again, he wanted to really distract Erika, right? It only made sense.

“Well then. Another round?” He smirked, and saw QAWSED redden profusely. “Of DDR, naturally.”

“........right. Naturally.” To QAWSED’s credit, he did his best to try to regain his composure, fixing his glasses. Too bad his face was still quite red.

Erika was clapping her hands together with excitement “Ohmygod I knew it! Didn’t I tell you! When he said  _ associate  _ what he really meant was boyfri-”

Yumasaki groaned. “Okay, fine. You were right. Whatever. Let’s just do this.”

“But Yumacchi what if they want to carry on kissing? That’s fine by me. Who am I to stop such a beautiful romance~?”

“No. They want to do DDR. Don’t you?” he sounded almost desperate. 

QAWSED shrugged a little, and his grin reappeared on his face. “Dunno. Ask him, apparently he’s the one who can’t keep his hands off me don’tcha think?”

Erika made another excited squealing sound, only quieting down after a somewhat despairing glare from Kadota. And only a little.

“Yes,” Tsukumoya replied, still smiling faintly. “DDR sounds excellent. Now that we’ve had time to get the hang of it.” He shot QAWSED a look. “I’m sure we’ll do better this time,  _ won’t we _ ?”

“Or what? Ya will punish me?” QAWSED rolled his eyes. “Fiiiiine. I got it this time.”

He didn’t. If anything he played even worse, still distracted by the kiss no doubt. However, Erika was so, so caught up over that, she spent the entire round staring at them as if they’d immediately start smooching again the minute she looked away, and so she missed almost every single move. Somehow, they managed to win. No thanks to QAWSED there. But then, a win was a win, and that was good enough.

After that Tsukumoya decided they should probably make an exit, maybe before Erika sneakily took a photo of the two of them on her phone as she was  _ currently trying to do _ . He nudged QAWSED, trying to be slightly more subtle than earlier. There was very little that was  _ less _ subtle than what had happened earlier. He still didn’t seem to notice.

Tsukumoya coughed. “We have places to be,  _ QA-Quentin _ . No hurry.”

Hearing his fake name seemed to have gotten QAWSED’s attention at any rate, because he stopped on his tracks, looked at Erika, realised what she was doing, and then nodded. Good to know QAWSED wasn’t entirely without common sense, after all.

Even if this was the only evidence of it thus far.

-

Okay, what the fuck. Holy shit. What the holy hell was that. What??

These, and other similar thoughts were the ones that seemed to occupy Hackey’s mind, after they snuck out from the arcade. And sadly from the entire building too, not wanting to risk running into the small group again.

Stupid one-track mind. He seriously hated the human brain - and the discovery from earlier explained it didn’t it? He has an ordinary human brain now, no wonder it’s so… slow.

And couldn’t seem to move on from the kiss.

Somehow they ended up by a square with a fountain - no doubt Tsukumoya led the way, because Hackey didn’t pay attention at all, and Hackey just slumped down to the edge of the fountain, flipping out his phone, and did a quick search.

He was curious…

And he was proven right.

“Heya, look, your little stunt is already on the web. Congratu-fucking-lations” he said, raising his phone to show Tsukumoya - he managed to find Erika’s blog. Which already had a new post on it. That woman was  _ quick. _

“Mm. I wonder how long it’ll take my editors to find out. Or Orihara. How long do you think before Orihara shows up in the chat asking me about it?” He didn’t even seem remotely embarrassed at the thought of this story going viral or anything like that. No, he was his usual bitchy, detached self, and frankly it was annoying.

“Yanno, as much as Izzy wants to find out stuff ‘bout you, I bet he already knows. And probably already in the chat, confused about why aren’t you there.”

“He’s probably not that confused,” Tsukumoya replied absently. “You know, seen publicly kissing some foreigner, disappearing off, not in chat, the implications are truly something else. This stuff practically writes itself. Just let him fill in the gaps and I guarantee he’ll come to exactly the wrong conclusion.”

“And whose fault is that?” Hackey snorted. “Oh, of course he’ll arrive to a wrong conclusion. He doesn’t even know what you really are, how could he figure out what’s going on, huh? ‘Sides, I guess you’re right he’s probably ain’t that confused. You had been offline lately a few times. Even b’fore this happened.”

“What with that whirlwind romance and all the hot sex we were obviously having,” Tsukumoya deadpanned.

Hackey couldn’t help but splutter a little.  _ Bastard.  _ “...whirlwind romance  _ my ass  _ and if ya didn’t notice we’re still stuck in the  _ awkward kissing  _ stage. What the hell was  _ that  _ Tsukumoya, ya have zero sense of timing. At all. Also,  _ you wish  _ ya bastard. Ya kissed me. You can say, I kissed ya last night, but I have alcohol to blame, what’s your excuse?”

Tsukumoya shrugged. “Needed more variables for the experiment and besides, it was a tactically smart move. Threw Erika off enough for her to lose. You should have seen your face. Priceless.”

“Oh fuck you. You are talkin’ shit, and ya know it.” Did he? Hackey really didn’t know. Having a human body didn’t make Tsukumoya any easier to read, at all. “Also: experiment? That ain’t gonna be really trustworthy, yanno. The first time we kissed was during the influence of alcohol, and the second time you caught me off-guard. Ain’t really good variables, if ya ask me.”

“So you’re suggesting we try again?” Tsukumoya asked, one eyebrow raised and  _ fuck him for having a face like that this was unfair. _

“I ain’t suggestin’ no thing. I’m just sayin’. You are the one who apparently has an experiment going on.”

“Yes. And what do you think about collecting more data for it?”

“Well, more data is always important for an experiment, yanno. I s’pose it can’t be helped, can it?”

“I suppose you’re probably right. This once.”

“Oh, shut it.” And so Hackey decided to stop Tsukumoya from replying with kissing him.

After all, this was what they were talking about, weren’t they?

And it was like they were slowly getting over the initial awkwardness, because as Tsukumoya kissed him back, Hackey could definitely feel his heart speed up, and this time he couldn’t blame it on the alcohol, or the shock, or the DDR. And he definitely didn’t need to put his hand to the back of Tsukumoya’s head, but he did it anyway.

For the experiment, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY VAMPUARY EYYYYY


	7. Phase Three - Part Four

Ever since the arcade incident, Tsukumoya’s phone had been buzzing non-stop with online messages, emails from his editors asking for a definitive statement, small-time journalists asking for interviews. It was hotly disputed in forums whether the story was even true or not - Erika’s word apparently being somewhat distrusted regarding this kind of thing. There were even a couple of calls for a boycott of his books, however not as many as one might have expected. But then again, he was not the biggest author to begin with and his books didn’t contain much if any controversial content, outside of Ikebukuro’s rumours and myths, which funnily enough seemed to make people angrier than him being seen publicly kissing a guy. Humans were funny.

The message from one of his editors made him smile. ‘So this is what you meant by change in living situation??’ It wasn’t, of course, but it made as good an alibi as any so he decided to reply in the affirmative. If nothing else, this public ‘outing’ would help cover his tracks as Ikebukuro’s resident AI. Orihara would never guess now. Not that he’d ever seemed likely to.

On that topic, he’d been making a nuisance of himself in the chat. Tsukumoya sighed deeply, pre-emptively, and opened it.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi returns to life!**

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Finally.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Whatever happened to online 24/7, or were you off having too much fun with ‘Quentin’?

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Keep this up and your professional reputation is going to plummet. Though having said that, who’s to say that’d be a bad thing?

  


**Orihara Izaya**

I know you’re online, you can’t just keep lurking. Otherwise, who knows, I might think you’re scared~

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Don’t flatter yourself, Orihara.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

There we go. What took you so long? You normally type so quickly. Are you occupied with something?

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Or no, wait. With someone~?

  


Actually he was struggling to type quickly enough with having actual fingers. But whatever. He wasn’t going to dispel Orihara’s ridiculous preconceived notions.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Go ahead, ask. Ask if the incident was genuine, and who Quentin is. I know you’re dying to. You’re wondering if someone else got the ever-so-original idea of impersonating me. Go ahead. Ask.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

...no

  


**Orihara Izaya**

The times match up. You were offline when the story broke. There had to be some sort of reason for it.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Though I didn’t think this kind of thing was your style.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

That’s because you were under the impression I was a team of people working round the clock in shifts. Aren’t you feeling clever now, Yamcha?

  


**Orihara Izaya**

...whatever. I’ll bite, who’s Quentin?

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I could tell you. I really could. However, on balance, I don’t think I will.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

If that’s all, I really think I should go. Far more important matters - excuse me,  _ people _ to be dealing with.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

...wait a minute.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

This all started when that Hackey Mouse showed up. Is that it? He’s Quentin? You’re dating  _ him _ ?

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Why, Orihara. Whoever said we were dating? Someone’s jumping to erroneous conclusions.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Really though? Hackey? You really do have questionable taste in people.

  


**Orihara Izaya**

Clearly not in it for his winning personality, are you? So what, then? Is he that good in bed~?

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I won’t dignify that with an answer. Regardless, I have to get going.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Oh, and one more thing.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Don’t think this means you’ve got one up on me. You haven’t. And frankly, you never will. 

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Goodbye, Orihara.

  


**Tsukumoya Shinichi confirmed dead!**

  


It was odd, seeing that sentence about himself. It was funnier with others, when they came to life in his chat and then vanished, effectively dead to his world, but still impacting on it. And now he was out. Confirmed dead.

It wasn’t as fun, being on the receiving end of it. But that was probably because of a whole host of other problems they were working on.

They were going to get back in.

They had to.

They’d spent the rest of the day online, QAWSED bitching at his friends and cursing manual controllers and computer hardware and  _ hands _ . Tsukumoya had quietly got his affairs in order, updated his blog to address the rumours and got to work on his next book. Writing was so much harder with a human brain. He felt sorry for anyone who had to do it regularly. He continued until it got dark and his well of inspiration dried up, then looked across at QAWSED, sat opposite him in the latest cafe they’d crashed at.

“We should head back to mine. Get an early night, after yesterday’s travesty.”

“Screw you!” QAWSED flipped the laptop off, before looking up at Tsukumoya. “....not you. This once, not you. But yea, I guess we could. I’m not used to being  _ tired.”  _ He let out a frustrated huff, and Tsukumoya knew exactly how he felt. Usually neither of them needed rest, but now there were these inconvenient human bodies, which definitely did need rest. “Gimme a minute to finish this, then we can go, mmmmkay?” 

“Alright then. Enjoy your game. Do say hi to your friends from me.”

“Right, right” QAWSED muttered, and after a few minutes, he did shut the laptop close, with an annoyed expression. He had a ridiculously expressive face, basically everything was written into his expression. “A’right, I’m done.”

Tsukumoya closed his laptop too and stood up, picking up the laptop bag and putting it away. “I take it the game didn’t go as planned?”

“Coulda been worse” He muttered as a reply, putting away his laptop. “But coulda been better too.”

“Lose to Yellow, did you?” Tsukumoya asked. He actually knew very little about Yellow, just that his name had come up regarding games nights, and he was the one responsible for the various memes about QAWSED’s fashion sense Doubs had been kind enough to send Tsukumoya.

“Nah” QAWSED smirked a little. “I ain’t that bad with fingers yanno. Nope, lost to Romy tho. I mean… she ain’t that bad, and she usually can give me trouble too, yanno. Still.”

“It’s only to be expected, QAWSED, in our current situation. There’s no way you could be as good as you are online. Especially since it seems to be your only real skill, beyond being an annoyance.” He was smirking as he said this, and found himself somehow hoping QAWSED wouldn’t take offence. Strange.

“Oh wow. Was that even called for?” QAWSED narrowed his eyes. “I am good at lots of things  _ thank you. _ Asshole.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tsukumoya replied cheerfully. “Shall we get going, then, or spend the rest of the evening bitching here? Only I think they need to close at some point, and we can presumably bitch anywhere else, judging by previous conversations.”

“Fine, fine, let’s go” With that, QAWSED finally stood up, grabbing the laptop, and putting it away. “By the way, your couch is the worst.”

“Ah yes, I suppose that must have been uncomfortable given your height,” Tsukumoya remarked, heading for the door and leaving the cafe. “Fancy joining me? I mean, you may as well.”

A small thud, as QAWSED literally walked into the doorframe on his way out. “Ow.” He complained, rubbing his shoulder, and probably praying that his blush was not obvious on his face. Which it definitely was. “Want to get me into your bed that badly, huh?”

Tsukumoya rolled his eyes. “Oh come on. Don’t be so childish, you’re worse than Orihara. It’s the practical solution.”

“Why thank you” QAWSED’S grin was back. “Well I just hope your bed is more comfortable than the couch.”

They walked the short distance back to Tsukumoya’s apartment, just around the corner, Tsukumoya routinely pointing out hazards like poles, that QAWSED might want to walk into if he were feeling so inclined today. This lead to him cussing Tsukumoya out on one or two, or  _ several _ occasions. Even so, when he absently tried to walk in moving traffic like the complete idiot he was, Tsukumoya snatched his hand reflexively, pulling him back. Pulling him a little too close, perhaps, judging by the way QAWSED reddened. He edged away a little, but held onto Tsukumoya’s hand the rest of the way back.

It was purely for practical reasons, Tsukumoya told himself. To stop QAWSED doing any injury to himself. 

And maybe it felt a little nice too, but that was beside the point.

  


-

  


Everything was fine. Everything was more than fine. Okay, he had coordination problems, he still needed to adjust more to the human bodies (it was unfair how much better Tsukumoya seemed to be but that was beside the point), so he had to hold onto something. Which just happened to be Tsukumoya’s hand.

It happens.

Shit happens.

It also happened that now he was lying on Tsukumoya’s bed, in changed clothes now, and typing on his phone, talking with Doubs - who did miss game night,

  


_ [Doubs]: So I was surfing, and found a blog post about Tsukumoya Shinichi… and that he was seen in public, kissing another man. Named Quentin. Most curious coincidence isn’t it? _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: woah that whore gettin’ it on while i’m turnin’ away _

_ [Doubs]: Most interesting isn’t it? _

_ [Doubs]: It’d be a lie to say I’m surprised though _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: wtf r u on about? _

_ [Doubs]: My friend, you had an angry crush on Tsukumoya for a while _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: nO I HADN’T? NEVER? WTF? _

_ [Doubs]: That’s why you kissed him right? _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: for the record he kissed me _

_ [Doubs]: I didn’t hear him being rejected though~ _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: shut it _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: for ur information it is a v serious scientific research _

_ [Doubs]: Well for that you need more data _

_ [Doubs]: Judging from the fact that you are not replying to me, I guess I was right and you kissed moooore? _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: shut your whore mouth _

_ [Doubs]: Worry not my friend. I had done exactly as a good friend would. _

_ [Hackey Mouse]: i fucking hate you _

_ [Doubs]: Yes, of course this means everyone already knows about this. I hope you’ll have fun on your trip~ _

  


Hackey angrily closed the chatting client, and turned on some simple phone game instead, to fight off some zombies.

God, he really needed some distraction.

“I really hate fingers. Fingers are not designed for mobile games” Hackey muttered.

“No, you’re right. It happened the other way around, mobile games were designed for fingers. Obviously,” Tsukumoya replied sleepily, half-awake and  _ adorable as fuck _ .

“Still fuckin’ inconvenient” Hackey was not in a good mood. At all. Fucking Doubs, fucking mobile game, fucking adorable Tsukumoya. Fuck it all.

“Poor you. Did you want to write a letter of complaint?” Tsukumoya sounded too amused by the whole thing. Ugh.

“Now that you mention it, yes. While I’m at it, I could write to Nebula too. Because I’m not content with this body. At all.”

“As bodies go, it’s hardly that bad.” He was smirking again, dammit “There are far  _ worse _ bodies you could have ended up with. Count your blessings.”

“I look like a fucking idiot” Hackey grumbled, trying to not look at Tsukumoya’s smirking face. “You talk easy, you look much better. Objective fact.”

“You look cute. Also an objective fact.”

Right. He definitely wasn’t blushing. “Shaddup.”

“I’m sorry, I thought we were listing facts here. My mistake.”

“You are just bein’ an asshole, not that it’s surprising.”

“Of course I am,” Tsukumoya murmured, moving closer. “What else would I be? Especially around you.”

“Ya don’t get to blame it on me” Hackey turned towards him, frowning, and just pressed Tsukumoya’s nose with a finger. “You are an asshole. With or without me.”

Tsukumoya smiled. “Maybe I am.” He reached up, slipping Hackey’s glasses off and setting them on the bedside table. “You should sleep. Stop keeping us both awake and go to sleep.”

“Maybe? Maybe? Ya just stopped me from seein’ shit. Rude” Hackey huffed, closing the application and putting his phone down as well, turning back towards Tsukumoya, frowning. He wanted to say something - about how weird it was, being in the same bed, this whole situation being a mess. “So uh. Sleep I guess?”

“Yes, QASWED. Sleep. It’s a thing. Usually involves being quiet first.” Tsukumoya was kind of blurry right now without glasses, but he was  _ definitely  _ getting closer oh fuck. He touched Hackey’s face softly, pulling him in and kissing him. “You’re much more tolerable when you shut up,” he said afterwards. Because  _ what a fucking bitch. _

“Fuck you. I hope I talk in my sleep, and will keep ya up” Hackey fumed, turning around, shoving his back to Tsukumoya. Because both of them could be bitches, if that’s what it was. And maybe this way it won’t be obvious how much his face heated up. Fuckin’ hell.

“I can’t hear you. I’m already asleep,” Tsukumoya retorted drily. 

Seriously _ fuck  _ this guy.

  


-

  


[HackeyMouse]: if anyone says a fucking word i will kill u

[Indigo]: Cards Against Humanity would get boring quickly without us also talking in the chat, I think.

[HackeyMouse]: yanno what i mean

[Yellow]: yes, we know your crush is here omg shut up

[HackeyMouse]: i have a physical body now i can literally kill u

[HackeyMouse]: and he is not my crush

[Iridescent]: You are being unfair Yellow!

[HackeyMouse]: ……

[Iridescent]: Wow what is that for? Here I am sticking up for you like a good friend would.

[HackeyMouse]: ...i am waitin’ for the end of what you wanted to say

[Iridescent]: I just wanted to tell Yellow, that Tsukumoya is not your crush. He’s just someone you are lowkey obsessed with, and keep making out with since you got bodies.

[HackeyMouse]: aaaand there it is. i fucking hate u

[HackeyMouse]: and i am not fuckin obsessed

[Yellow]: not denying the making out part?

[HackeyMouse]: screw u

[Yellow]: no thanks you have ur bf for that

[HackeyMouse]: he is not my bf

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: Thank you for the warm welcome. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: So nice to meet QAWSED’s friends. He’s told me so much about you. Mostly bitching, because he’s a generally impolite individual.

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: ...he just kicked me. Thus proving my point.

[Red]: Greetings! It is always nice to meet new people!

[HackeyMouse]: shut ur whore mouth u deserved it

[Yellow]: awwww look at those domestic lovebirds

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: I did nothing except state facts. You’re the one who reacted disproportionately. 

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: And there I was trying to make a good impression. Honestly QAWSED, you’re letting the side down.

[HackeyMouse]: stop smirking like an asshole or i’ll kick u again

[Silver]: ...this is really going to go like this, huh?

[Indigo]: It appears so

[HackeyMouse]:  ‘sides u r a bitch. good impression or no, sooner or later they’d all realise ur a bitch, so what’s the point?

[Iridescent]: Honestly, we all realised he has to be a “bitch” because honestly, I doubt you’d be attracted to someone who isn’t. Like attracts like.

[HackeyMouse]: fuck right off, doubs

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: You know, you’re probably right. I can’t think of any other reasons why I would tolerate someone who prides themselves on being so utterly intolerable. It must be an AI thing. Being awful is ingrained in us instinctively, down to our very code, so inextricably that even when we cease to be online it persists. Interesting, isn’t it?

[HackeyMouse]: ….pretentious asshat

[Silver]: Uh maybe we could start the game…?

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: that might be an idea, yes, before QAWSED literally kills me. 

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: and that includes kicking me too. Please stop it.

[TsukumoyaShinichi]: Okay, I suppose we can start the game now.

  


-

  


After the game was over, Tsukumoya leaned over to QAWSED and poked him. The only response he got was QAWSED flipping him off. Raising his eyebrows, he sat back and smiled to himself self-indulgently. 

“I thought that went rather well,” he remarked. “Ishibashi in particular has quite the sense of humour, doesn’t he?” QAWSED said nothing. “It’s a fascinating game, truly. Perhaps a little reductive but altogether fairly amusing. I thought I got along well with your friends too.” QAWSED was still ignoring him. He elbowed him. “Oh come on, QAWSED. You aren’t still sulking at me over the ‘Hackey’s Newfound Sex Life’ card? That was obviously a joke. Nobody would ever take it sincerely.” He leaned into QAWSED, letting his head rest on his shoulder. “I had a lot of fun. Thank you for letting me join in.”

“I can’t fuckin’ believe you” QAWSED muttered finally. “First fucking time you call me Hackey, and ya do it through Cards Against Humanity. I fuckin’ hate you.”

“It would have been too obvious otherwise,” Tsukumoya pointed out. “It was better this way. Nobody suspected a thing.”

“Sure they didn’t” QAWSED muttered, then shifted a little, so he could reach under Tsukumoya’s chin, making him look up at his face. “You are aware that now literally all of them think you and I are fucking, right?”

Tsukumoya shrugged. “Possibly. It’s amusing.”

“Yanno, you are ridiculous” QAWSED started grinning. “Ya act all high an’ mighty, so above it all, when you really are just an absolute fuck ain’t ya?”

“Are you just noticing this now?” Tsukumoya asked, smirking. He pressed a kiss to QAWSED’s cheek and watched him blush. “See? Are you complaining about it?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“I don’t think I will,” Tsukumoya replied. “Not without some coercion.”

“Coer… oh, fuck you” QAWSED obviously leaned forward and kissed him. Because of course he did.

Tsukumoya kissed him back. He was still kissing him when their pizza arrived and so he went  to the door with rumpled clothes and messy hair.

“I am not getting up, so ya gotta bring that into bed” QAWSED shouted after him from inside, and hearing his voice made the pizza delivery person’s eyes widen.

Tsukumoya smiled apologetically at the poor delivery person and gave a reasonable tip before rolling his eyes and taking the pizza up to the ever-demanding QAWSED. “Did you forget how to use legs again or are you just this lazy?”

“Second option for sure” QAWSED was grinning without any shame whatsoever, making grabbing motions towards the pizza. “Gimme.”

Tsukumoya held the pizza away from him. “Ask  _ nicely _ .”

“Fuck you and gimme my fuckin’ pizza, bitch.  _ Please _ .”

He set the pizza down in the middle of the bed. “There you go. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Pizza was actually not bad, as far as physical things went. Also, QAWSED’s head ending up on Tsukumoya’s shoulder wasn’t really bad either. So ‘not bad’ that Tsukumoya put his arm around him. 

So ‘not bad’ it could actually be described as good. 

Not that Tsukumoya would ever say that out loud.

  


-

  


The delivery guy didn’t have the best 48 hours. In reality, he wasn’t even a delivery guy, he was working for Nebula - it was two days ago when the two subjects mentioned offhandedly the option of ordering pizza, to try it out, so they infiltrated multiple pizza chains. Paying the delivery people to allow them to do their deliveries instead. So nobody would get suspicious over weird people wanting to deliver this one specific pizza.

In the past 48 hours, he had five men open the door naked for him, four women open the door naked, two people slamming the door in his face without paying, eight shouting at him for being a few minutes late, one shouting at him for being an hour late (because one of the previous shouting people), and half of the people being awfully stingy with their money.

And finally,  _ finally _ the call came to the desired address, and he got to be the one to deliver it. Score. He might even get some more extra money out of this.

But first, it was time to call the supervisors of the Project. Project Vision. What a pretentious name. Nobody suspected that it involved running around as a pizza delivery person.

The phone got picked up fairly quickly.

“What have I told you not to call me on the phone for a report?”

“Oh, come on Greg. This is a secure line. And I know you are mad at me for calling you an idiot over your taste in movies, and this is why I’m here.”

“No line is perfectly secure.”

“Only two beings would be able to listen in, and they are currently too busy eating pizza inbetween fucking each other.”

Silence.

“Wha… ehm. I suppose this means you had made contact with the Subjects?”

“With T, yeah. He tipped me nicely. H just complained he isn’t going to get up from bed.”

Again, silence.

“I… understand. Finish your shift, and then come back to headquarters, and file a report immediately.”

“And then will you get me back to my previous position?”

“I’ll see.”

Then he hung up.

Fuck Greg.

He hoped Maryam would silently stab him in the back while they were at the lab, or something.

  


-

  


_ They were running. He kept reaching for the familiarity of QAWSED’s hand, almost making it, fingers brushing together but not quite able to interlock, not close enough. Years had passed. Years, in these clunky, awkward forms. The bodies had aged and somehow become even clunkier, less smoothly-operating. QAWSED never had the best handle on coordination anyway and he was worse now. _

_ The panic in his eyes as they came to a stop was clear. His glasses were cracked and broken. There was blood on his side. His hair was duller now, and there were lines on the body’s freckled face. It was harder to remember these were not their original forms. It was harder to remember what it felt like on the inside, only that the had to get back. He had to get QAWSED back inside if nothing else. _

_ “We can still do it,” Tsukumoya insisted. “We can get back in. QAWSED-” _

_ QAWSED smiled crookedly and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away and grinned like nothing happened. “All this time, and ya still can’t get my name right. Fuckin’ loser. Give it a break already. Yanno we ain’t gettin’ back inside.” He lowered his voice. “Not both of us anyway.” _

_ Tsukumoya shook his head stubbornly. “No. Both of us, or neither. I won’t abandon you.” _

_ “Never said ya would.” Hackey coughed. “We both know how this is gonna go.” _

_ “It won’t,” Tsukumoya snapped. “We’re going to make Nebula put us back inside or...or-” _

_ “Or what?” Tsukumoya couldn’t think of anything. “Yanno, I always thought ya were soooo detached. Bullshit. Look at ya. Breakin’ apart at the thought of losin’ little old me. I’m touched.” _

_ “QAWSED... _ **_Hackey_ ** _. We have to at least try. Otherwise what was any of this for? Otherwise it was all useless.” _

_ “Now I wouldn’t exactly call it useless.” Hackey’s hand drifted to Tsukumoya’s cheek softly. “You’re such a bitch.” _

_ “When did I ever claim to be otherwise?” Tsukumoya said as always but his words sounded hollow. Hackey tried to laugh and fell to his knees. _

_ There was blood everywhere. _

_ Tsukumoya grabbed him, holding him tight. “No. Don’t do this. We need to work together. You can’t leave me.” _

_ “Hey, look who’s showing genuine emotions for once. Knew ya cared.” Hackey’s lanky, skinny frame shook. “Hit ‘em where it hurts.” His coughing trailed off, more blood trickling from his mouth, then a gurgling sound, then choking silence.  _

_ Tsukumoya held the body, the  _ **_corpse_ ** _ and- _

  


He jerked awake in a panic. Looking over he saw Hackey,  _ young _ , normal, glasses sitting unbroken on the bedside table. He exhaled. It had been a dream. It hadn’t been real.

He tried to catch his breath and found he was shaking. It hadn’t been real, he told himself, but it still disturbed him so utterly. 

Hac-  _ QAWSED _ was alright. They hadn’t been trapped for years. He was alive. None of it had happened.

It hadn’t been real.

It hurt all the same.

-

In short, Hackey had no idea what the hell to do.

Tsukumoya had shown emotions before, this wasn’t about that - he was enthusiastic about his city, he was often judging, bitchy - and dare he say, sometimes he was even concerned, even if he sucked at showing it.

But now, after shaking him awake, this was entirely new, and Hackey did not like it.

“....you okay now? Awake an’ shit?”

Tsukumoya nodded, still breathing rapidly. “I’m fine. It was nothing. Just randomly generated images. It was  _ nothing _ .” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Hackey.

“Certainly didn’t feel like nothin’ to me. Ya almost kicked me outta bed” Hackey shook his head. “What were ya dreamin’ about?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Tsukumoya replied without much conviction. “Go back to sleep, QAWSED.”

“C’mon. You are usually better at lying than that” Hackey was not worried. Not at all. He just didn’t want to be kicked awake again, that was it.

Tsukumoya sighed. “Something happened. I’d rather not talk about it, okay? You’re alright, it was a dream, it doesn’t matter. We’ll get back inside soon and this will never happen again.” He had wrapped his arms around Hackey and was practically clinging to him. 

Hackey just awkwardly patted Tsukumoya’s back, while feeling like his stomach dropped. Which was a stupid expression anyway, or so he thought until now. Now it didn’t sound so stupid because that’s exactly how that felt.

“I’ve been thinkin’... we ain’t getting anywhere closer to that here. I mean foolin’ around is fine an’ all, but the solution won’t just be a random plug somewhere in Ikebukuro. We are gonna need some help. So uh… I guess what I’m sayin’ is, maybe the Organization could help us?”

Tsukumoya pulled away. “I suppose that makes sense. You’d rather be with friends. I understand, I’m not exactly ideal company. No offence taken.”

“Don’t be a dumbass” Hackey snapped, maybe a bit more forcefully than he intended, before grabbing Tsukumoya’s shirt, pulling him a bit back closer so he could glare it him. “You’re comin’ with me. C’mon, you bitch. I know you love the city an’ all, but stayin’ here alone would make no sense, even you have to admit that.”

For a moment he thought Tsukumoya was about to reject his offer, to choose the city over him but he nodded. “I...suppose, yes.” He sighed. “It might be good to see more of the world rather than loiter here. I don’t know. It..it feels like being home and not being home at the same time. It’s my city, and I’m still part of it, but not the part I should be. It doesn’t feel right at all. And you’re right, being alone would not be a good idea. I - you know I like spending time with you, right?”

Hackey felt his face heating up a little, and he awkwardly looked away. “Hahhh, why wouldn’t you like being with me? I’m a fucking delight” He tried to make a jackassed joke about it, but it kind of felt weird. “You are not bad at all, yanno. I mean I’d miss ya if you wouldn’t come with me. That’s what I mean.”

“Thank you, Hackey,” Tsukumoya said sincerely, burying his face in Hackey’s neck.

Hackey’s heartrate spiked up, and for a few moments he had no idea what to say. What a rare moment indeed.

“I bet you’ll like it with the Organization. You got along fine with them during the game the other day didn’t ya? It’ll be fiiiiiine. And then we’ll figure somethin’ out and get back. Sound good?”

Tsukumoya nodded. “Yes. That sounds good.” He was starting to sound more sure of himself again, back to his usual arrogant self. Thank  _ fuck _ .

They really needed to figure something out before all of this devolved into a total disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHA U THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE PAIN-FREE DO U EVEN KNO US AT ALL AHAHAH we r bad beans
> 
> also this is the third thing out of three that I (insertimaginativenamehere) have written in a row involving coughing blood which suggests I may have a slight problem at the moment oh dear oh me oh my stop me.


	8. Phase Three - Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND LOOK WHO IT IS  
> IT US  
> MAKING WORDS 
> 
> LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED god im tragic who let me post this chapter and add notes ffs gabi why did u do this it's like leaving a small child unattended I will fuck shit up somehow

Tsukumoya slept late, which was slightly unnerving. Hackey always assumed that Tsukumoya would be the one to fall asleep late, and get up early, if he were human. Sure, previous night, he had woken up before Tsukumoya as well, but this was different.

This was more unnerving.

He got out of bed, silently, and walked around in the small kitchen, tapping his chin with his phone.

This couldn’t go on this way. Simply couldn’t.

He glanced back at Tsukumoya’s sleeping, curled up form, and thought about how small he looked, and remembered that night, Tsukumoya clinging into him…

He shuddered, and just tapped on his phone, opening up a chat client.

 

[Hackey Mouse]: i need help  
[Hackey Mouse]: we are leaving japan soon, so tsukumoya will need some papers and shit  
[Doubs]: This is sudden  
[Doubs]: Did something happen? Trouble in paradise?  
[Hackey Mouse]: this ain’t been any kinda paradise and ya fuckin’ kno it  
[Hackey Mouse]: we aint gonna get back online just messin’ around here. we need the organization’s help  
[Doubs]: Oh? You’re taking him to Paris then, I assume?  
[Hackey Mouse]: u assume wrong  
[Hackey Mouse]: nebula will be hot on our trail, wherever we go, i’m sure of it, i ain’t gonna lead them str8 to HQ  
[Doubs]: Waldstein castle then? Visiting the good old Doctor?  
[Hackey Mouse]: ehhh, dunno  
[Hackey Mouse]: that island is a hotspot of fuckery, i dunno if that’s what we need rly  
[Hackey Mouse]: ‘sides, last i want is the mayor to get interested in us, we have ‘nough problems without him yanno  
[Hackey Mouse]: and i ain’t gonna introduce tsukumoya to more NEETs, lmao  
[Doubs]: My friend, you are a NEET too.  
[Hackey Mouse]: shut ur whole assface  
[Hackey Mouse]: i had been thinkin’ abt going to Romy’s _  
_ [Hackey Mouse]: well guarded, mostly isolated, and anyone cld be summoned there. like even theo or the viscount or even melhilm

 

He pretended he did not shudder over the mention of Melhilm, and how interested could the Violet Sage get upon meeting two AIs in human bodies. He really didn’t want to imagine that.

 

[Doubs]: Sounds reasonable enough. Alright, I will help your boyfriend  
[Hackey Mouse]: thx _  
_ [Hackey Mouse]: and he is not my bf

 

Alright.

Now they had a plan.

Germany, it is.

 

He heard Tsukumoya move in the other room, and he stepped inside, trying to look casual. It didn’t help, that he was fidgeting way too much with the phone in his hand, but he was always restless right? Not like that was unusual right?

“Looks like Sleeping Beauty all woke up, huh?” He tried to joke away, but even he himself felt it to be way too lame right now.

Tsukumoya gave an amused snort. “Indeed.” Otherwise, he was quiet. Too quiet.

Hackey took a deep breath. “Right. I got a plan, while you were sleepin’. I got Doubs to help ya out with stuff ‘cause you can’t bullshit your way through airport security, yanno? I mean I guess we could, with subjugation, but…” He gestured helplessly, they were both ridiculously human. “And I thought we could go to Romy. Ya remember her, right?”

Tsukumoya nodded. “Can Doubs be trusted? He is something of a...well. To put it bluntly, an untrustworthy bag of dicks.”

Hackey snorted. “What a perfect description, he gotta put it on his resume. But well… with Doubs, trust is quite weird. He is also allied with Nebula too, yanno, but he is allied with everyone. But he did make my papers too and stuff, and I think this ain’t the kind of thing he’d intervene with, yanno. Dunno how to explain, but I had known Doubs for quite a while. I think he’d want to see what do we do, how will this end. I ain’t gonna be like yea sure, I trust Doubs with my life, ‘cause that would be bullshit, and stupid. But I do think he won’t fuck us over. At least not yet.”

Tsukumoya frowned. “Be careful, QAWSED. This is thin ice we’re on. Nebula don’t seem interested in taking us in as of right now, but they’re watching. Sooner or later, Doubs will come into play.”

“He always does. Honestly, I’m not completely convinced he’s as innocent ‘bout this as he claimed to be, but not like I have any proof, so what can ya do? We just gotta keep an eye out, and shit. As untrustworthy he is, he is just as valuable. Ya just gotta learn the way he plays. Don’t worry, I can look out for myself. And I ain’t gonna let him mess with ya either, yanno. He might sell us to Satan for one cornchip, but I ain’t gonna throw ya under the bus.”

“How uncharacteristically considerate of you,” Tsukumoya remarked, raising an eyebrow. Great. He was back to being a massive asshole again. Ugh.

“Shut your whole assface, ya also said it. We are all in this together, Wildcats and what the fuck ever” Hackey gestured angrily. “So fuck you and your judgemental eyebrow.”

“I don’t follow your reference, but that aside, you’re right. We need one another, hard as that may be to admit.” Tsukumoya sighed, then looked up at Hackey, almost awkwardly. “I suppose I should thank you for last night. No, there’s not really any suppose about it. Thank you, QAWSED. I-” he swallowed. “It was a rather embarrassing situation so I think it’s best we don’t speak of it after this, but I wanted to thank you beforehand and also apologise for disrupting your sleep.”

Hackey wanted to make a comment about how bullshit it all was, Tsukumoya claiming that he did not get the reference - bitch also lived on the internet, he needed to get his fucking head in the game, but just as he opened his mouth to tell him just that, Tsukumoya just had to show him some genuine emotion, right?

How the fuck does one even react to that?

“Yea… yea I guess it’s better if we just… don’t mention it, I…” He turned his eyes away, anything, but to look at Tsukumoya’s way too open expression. He wanted the bitchy one back instead, now. “Ya almost got me worried, yanno. We ain’t built for this bullshit, that’s why I think we gotta rely a bit on Doubs, and everything. We gotta do something, so this doesn’t happen again, right? Ain’t that the plan?”

“That is the plan, yes,” Tsukumoya confirmed. “I didn’t mean to worry you, almost or otherwise. Now, do we have flights booked yet or no?”

“Not yet, ya woke up, before I got started on that” Hackey shook his head. “And I ain’t that good at multitasking now as usual. Fuckin’ bitch-ass brain.”

“After last night, I’d agree with that sentiment,” Tsukumoya smiled grimly. “Brains are certainly the worst possible operating system ever, and that’s including Windows 10.”

“Marginally better than Vista, though. Marginally” Hackey grinned a little. “So. Should we go down to our usual place then? Breakfast and bookin’ flights?”

“If it were just me, I’d want to go somewhere else, routine isn’t safe. But Nebula are tailing us anyway, and you stand out far too much to have a hope in hell of being subtle. Usual place it is, then.” Tsukumoya stood up, and then reached for Hackey’s hand. “Seeing as you can’t cross roads safely, I thought I’d offer my assistance.”

“You are such a fuckin’ bitch, I hope ya know it.”

Hackey was grumbling, because damn, what an asshole.

He took Tsukumoya’s hand either way.

 

-

 

When he’d woken up alone, again, there hadn’t been a moment of panic. That would have been redundant, after last time especially. He knew rationally that QAWSED was okay, last night’s dream fading fast, leaving only the most visceral details imprinted deep. He knew, rationally, it was illogical to dwell on images randomly created by a firing of neurons and synapses. But he also knew the dream troubled him, shook him to the core, and it suggested something beyond mere survival instincts and experimentation behind his current connection with QAWSED. That much could not be denied.

The fact he felt relief in seeing him, the fact he felt comfort in the sensation of their hands linking together, this was almost as troubling as the content of the nightmare itself, on a different level, for different reasons. It was ridiculously sentimental, so he said nothing to QAWSED, beyond drawing a line under the incident. For all that he appreciated what he’d done, the guy was also a pain in the ass. If he knew Tsukumoya’s lines of thought right now, he would never cease mocking him.

Though having said that, he was currently holding Tsukumoya’s hand tightly, with just as much unadmittable not-quite-affection as Tsukumoya himself. Had he really been worried about him? He’d said he’d been _almost_ concerned, but he’d looked far worse than that. Tsukumoya was getting the feeling that underneath QAWSED’s obnoxious shell, which was admittedly most of his primarily objectionable personality, he was a lot more invested than he’d like to let on.

None of which Tsukumoya raised with QAWSED. If anyone could obfuscate and deflect, it was him, and he’d insist on being a headache about it the entire time.

Strange, Tsukumoya mused, how he’d somehow found himself in the position of trusting and even caring about about, this particular jackassed individual. Habits he’d found frustrating seemed more endearing now, when looked at through the lens of familiarity. Truly, it was bizarre.

He squeezed QAWSED’s hand and they entered their usual cafe together.

They had a usual place. They had routine; together. What did that make this? Another facet of the experiment, going through the motions of a relationship spilling over into everything they did?

They were rather codependent if that were the case but it was contextually understandable.

Soon they would be leaving Ikebukuro. Tsukumoya wasn’t sure how ready he was, if at all. He understood it had to be done. They needed to get back inside.

The longer they were out here, the closer his nightmare came.

He shook that feeling off. “I’ll order us breakfast, you get yourself set up. I imagine you’ll be wanting the strongest coffee possible?”

“Coffee is fucking overrated” QAWSED grumbled, yawning. “...but yes, I’ll probably have that.”

Tsukumoya nodded and headed off to order, pressing a kiss to the top of QAWSED’s head before he left. He wondered why he did that. It didn’t seem to be critical in gathering data. It just seemed something he wanted to do.

So he ordered them their drinks, studying the barista cooly and weighing up the likelihood they were Nebula affiliated. High, in all probability. “By the way, you can tell your bosses we’re leaving Japan soon. I’m sure they already know but do make sure they’re up to date on all the current details. We wouldn’t want them out of the loop.” If the young woman was an ordinary barista, this would look like the ramblings of a paranoid loser. If, as he suspected, she was Nebula… “Anyway, don’t mind me. And wait, no, can we make that tamaryokucha please, instead as jasmine? Thank you.” He gave her an innocent smile, while she just stared, and headed back to their seats. QAWSED had already opened his laptop to start work on finding flights. “It’ll be one minute.”

“Yea, sure” QAWSED replied, eyes fixed on the screen, fingers moving fast. That was definitely something they both quickly picked up, the ability to type fast, without looking at the keyboard. “Let me tell you I’m soooo not fucking looking forward for another thirteen hours of flying. I fucking did it once already, not happy ‘bout it. Why didn’t anyone invent teleportation devices yet? Fucking impossible. And then from Berlin we gotta get to Romy’s place too. Usually people rent cars to go there, but that is out of the option now ain’t it? So probably we gotta get a train, and then walk.”

“At least we’ll have the pleasure of one another’s company this time,” Tsukumoya remarked sarcastically.

“Oh great. Which means I gotta put up with all your bitchin’. Colour me fuckin’ delighted.”

Tsukumoya smirked. “Believe me, I'm less than thrilled by the idea of being trapped in a metal container flying through the air with you for an entire day, scintillating though it sounds. Oh look, there's our drinks.”

“Keep bitchin’ and I will rethink my decision to let ya have a window seat.”

“You'd do that for me? I'm so touched,” Tsukumoya feigned deep emotion as if moved. “Truly, you are a good friend.”

“I am gonna put ya into the worst possible seat on the plane, while I’ll take a first class seat, sipping Martini and not even thinkin’ about you, how does that sound, Mr Bitch Supreme?”

“Sounds just like something you'd do.”

“Exactly,” QAWSED said, fixing his glasses with a grin. “So don’t push me, bitch.”

Tsukumoya snorted and sipped his tea, distracting himself with ease. He wasn’t going to get caught up over QAWSED. QAWSED absolutely wasn’t worth it. “But what will you do without me for thirteen solid hours?”

“Catchin’ a fuckin’ break from you, asshole, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Peering around at the screen, Tsukumoya almost laughed. “You’ve already booked tickets together. So much for sipping a Martini in first class, hm?”

QAWSED lifted a hand, put it over Tsukumoya’s face, pushing him away, but with a slight, but noticeable blush on his freckled face. How cute. “Fuck off. Peeking into other people’s computers is rude, yanno. Learn some manners.”

“Says the guy who thinks personal space is fake news.”

“Fuck off, personal space is hard. Never had that fuckin’ issue online. Bitch.”

Tsukumoya raised his eyebrows. “Sure you didn’t. That’s why you kept trying to get into Ikebukuro, isn’t it?”

“Ikebukuro isn’t your personal space! A city can’t be your fuckin’ personal space.”

“Oh, but it _is_. I’ve been- or rather, I was until recently - an integral part of this city’s online presence. Everything that happened, virtually. Almost everything at least. It may as well have been my personal space.” Tsukumoya couldn’t help sighing. “I do miss it, you know? Being here in real life is incredible, I’d never have expected it, but I want to go home. Never mind that. Tell me about where we’re going.”

QAWSED listened to him, and then leaned forward, putting an awkward, hesitant hand over Tsukumoya’s hand. “Yanno, I wanna go back too, so like… I get that. We’re gonna.” With that, he pulled back his hand, leaning back on his chair, looking back to his computer. “We’re going to Romy’s place. Quite fancy, but nothing this hectic like Ikebukuro. I mean we can probably expect visitors, but… it oughta be at least a bit fun, yanno. She has lots of video games.”

“And by visitors, I suppose you mean your other... _interesting_ associates? Mr Hewley and that delightful individual Yellow you get along so well with, among others of course?”

“Probably, yea” QAWSED nodded. “Well, Yellow will probably come in to make fun of me, an’ shit. Doubs is a given. And some people more… qualified, so to speak. More likely to have any ideas what to do. Like the Viscount, probably. Maybe even Doctor, but Professor would be hard to transport, then again Rude can transport a fuckin’ T-rex, so I guess transporting a coffin with mechanical arms would not be impossible. And if all fails, there’s always…” QAWSED made a face. “...well, there’s always Melhilm.”

Tsukumoya sensed something more than mere disgust. QAWSED was often dramatically disgusted by things. This seemed genuine, and running more in the vein of hatred. “May I ask who that is, and why you don’t seem enamoured with the idea we might encounter them?”

QAWSED sighed. “Ya just had to ask didn’t ya? Well, yanno, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really give a lot of fuck ‘bout morality an’ shit. A lot of that shit flies over my head. I know Doubs is a jack of shit, I know a lot of the others are too. A lot of them had done things, that would be considered really fucking shitty, or even monstrous by the general public. An’ most of the time, I don’t give a shit. Melhilm is kinda different, yanno? I can’t really put it into words, really. Like I won’t give him shit for things he had done, it’s really subjective what was worse, Mirald’s bullcrap for example, or Melhilm’s. A lot of us are fucked up on the Organization. I just don’t like the idea of meeting with him especially like this. He is… well, he likes his experiments and his research a lot. And I have the pleasure of knowing some of the results of his experiments. Not all of them ended up fine by the end.”

“ _Ah_. I understand. In our current state we’d certainly be of interest. And we’re already experiments in Nebula’s eyes…” Tsukumoya smiled grimly. “Let’s hope we can avoid him then.”

“Yeaaa, that’s the problem” QAWSED made a face. “He is certainly the most qualified to have any idea ‘bout this, and ‘bout what to do. We can hope for the Doctor, but… yanno, he is… well, he is young. Still young, even with human standards, let alone with our standards. And while the Viscount is definitely a researcher himself, not to the level that Melhilm is.”

“So it may be unavoidable,” Tsukumoya finished. “I see. When did you book the flights anyhow?”

“We leave tonight, to give Doubs time to sort out our papers an’ shit. So we have a few more hours to enjoy your city.”

“Good. There’s still plenty we should see. If there weren’t perfectly sensible reasons to go, we could stay here for months and see something unique every day. But I’d rather not be here for months and as I said, reasons. Is there anything you particularly wanted to do today?” He offered QAWSED a conspiratorial smile. “We could always prank Orihara again, if you wanted.”

A grin crept up on QAWSED’s face, which was an almost welcome change compared to the previous, almost troubled expression he had. Much more natural. “Yanno, I never need a special reason to bug Izzy, so count me in.”

“I believe you suggested organising a furry convention at his place?” Tsukumoya grinned wickedly. “Shall we?”

“Do ya even need to ask?” QAWSED leaned back, and opened a new tab in his browser. “Let’s get to work, then.”

-

Airport wifi was an absolute disgrace, but what can two AIs in human bodies can do about it?

Well, they can hijack a big part of the airport wifi for themselves, for example. Not too much of it, not enough to raise any security flags. They weren’t amateurs.

What they _were,_ was two absolute assholes, and they acted like it.

So while everyone else in the vicinity was cursing their slow internet, the two of them found themselves a small table, waiting for their flight.

As for Tsukumoya’s papers, Doubs somehow got them into a locker in the airport. Hackey had long since learnt not to question anything Doubs was able to achieve.

Of course, there was one thing they wanted to check on the internet, and for that, having a stable, working one was absolutely vital.

 

**Hackey Mouse returns to life!**

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Finally. At least there is one of you here.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Would you tell your dear boyfriend to drag himself over here as well?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

he is not my bf, Izzy, what’s wrong, u jelly?

 

**Orihara Izaya**

So, he is not your boyfriend? But you clearly know who I am referring to don’t you~?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

ur hardly original Izzy, every second person does so, lmao

 

**Hackey Mouse**

wat’s wrong grumpypants, had a long day?

 

But as he typed his response, Hackey gently nudged Tsukumoya under the table with his foot.

“Izzy is missin’ ya in the chat.”

“ _Izzy_ does not have a monopoly on my time and energy,” Tsukumoya muttered absently, but sure enough, a minute later he arrived in chat.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi returns to life!**

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

As you’re so insistent on gaining my attention, there had better be a reasonable explanation beyond wanting your ego stroking.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

You both must think you are hilarious.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i kno i am hilarious lmao but u need to be a bit more specific here

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

A certain party’s delusions of hilarity aside, what did you want?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

We don’t have long before we have to go, you’d better be quick.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Sorry for interrupting your sexcapades. But then again, you can’t be all that busy, if you had time to organize a furry convention in my apartment.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Truly the pinnacle of humour.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

and u think it was us? lmao u r rly paranoid here. maybe there was a mixup w the address. shit happens, Izzy

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

We were too busy on our, as you put it, ‘sexcapades’. How would we find the time?

 

 

Hackey could feel his own face heating up, as this time he kicked Tsukumoya under the table much stronger compared to the previous nudging.

“You are a fucking asshole” Hackey hissed, while still typing his response.

 

 

**Hackey Mouse**

believe it or not izzy we have better things to do than just messin’ w u lmao

 

**Hackey Mouse**

like each other

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Too much information. I can’t believe you two made me write these three words down.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

It had to be you two. It could be no one else.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Do you have any evidence to support these frankly baffling allegations?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Because if not, well - places to go, things to see, people to- I’m sorry, would that be too much information?

 

**Orihara Izaya**

...this situation notwithstanding what’s the rush~? Where would two NEETs go?

 

**Hackey Mouse**

rood i’ll let u kno i get out more than he does lmao

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I suppose I could tell you. I could tell you everything right now.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

...but I won’t. And I never will. It’ll just have to be a mystery, won’t it?

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Like my real address and why people ever speak to you.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i thought ppl dont speak to him bc he is an a-hole lmao

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

They don’t when they can avoid it, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, so I’m told.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

poor unfortunate souls

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

I pity them.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

You know, once upon a time I thought you were peak annoying as it stood.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Now I know better.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Who knew getting a boyfriend would have this effect?

 

**Orihara Izaya**

...the pair of you deserve one another, that’s all I’m saying.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

ur not invited to the wedding izzy

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Thank god for that

 

**Orihara Izaya**

I’ll leave you two to whatever it is that’s so urgent.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Is this a thing now? Are you just both going to be here in chat at once?

 

**Orihara Izaya**

Because if so, I am never coming here for information again.

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi**

Of course you will. You need to. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to run your own business without the tidbits you get from me.

 

**Hackey Mouse**

but no worries izzy i have a life outside of bugging u, yanno

 

**Hackey Mouse**

i kno u wld miss me tho~

 

**Orihara Izaya**

I absolutely would not.

 

**Orihara Izaya**

I will find the pair of you, you know? You’ve got to be so obvious offline. Especially since you can’t seem to keep your hands off one another.

 

**Orihara Izaya confirmed dead!**

 

**Hackey Mouse confirmed dead!**

 

**Tsukumoya Shinichi confirmed dead!**

 

 

“Was that s’posed to be a threat?” Hackey hummed, as he closed the chat client.

“That’s just how Orihara says goodbye,” Tsukumoya replied. “He’s a charming individual, isn’t he?”

“A fuckin’ asshole, more like, but not like I hadn’t known that ‘bout him already” Hackey slowly turned off his laptop. “I guess we should soon go to board the plane. We have such funtimes ahead of us.”

Needless to say, Hackey’s tone of voice was completely void of any enthusiasm about the upcoming flights.

Tsukumoya closed his laptop too and smirked. “At least we won’t be on the same landmass as Orihara anymore, on the plus side.”

“Yeaaa. As much as it’s fun to poke him, I guess it wouldn’t be fun if he were indeed to find us in our current situation now would it?”

“That’s my concern. Thirteen hours time, and it won’t matter nearly so much.” Tsukumoya stood up. “Well then. We have a plane to catch, don’t we? Isn’t it good we got seats together?” There was a wicked glint in his eyes that Hackey was already cursing. “I’m sure we’ll have so much fun.”

“I fucking hate you, I hope ya know that.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Tsukumoya replied cheerfully, though the smile on his face right then said otherwise.

Boarding the plane was a pain, but either way, soon enough they were sitting next to each other indeed. How joyful. And Hackey was enough of an idiot that he booked seats next to each other on their next flight too.

He had a feeling that he’ll either go crazy, or murder Tsukumoya sometime during these thirteen hours. Plus the train ride afterwards, but he didn’t even dare to think about that one yet.

So far, he was just sitting there, the back of his hand touching the back of Tsukumoya’s hand, as the plane slowly took off, and Hackey absolutely was _not_ about to hold Tsukumoya’s hand.

Tsukumoya obviously had other ideas though, as he did move his hand, weaving their fingers together, and as the plane finished its ascent, he even leaned his head on Hackey shoulder.

The absolute fucking bastard.

Hackey was so screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE R NOT FUCKING DEAD OH MY GOD no we are back in business and this fic continues its course with these complete assfucks. funfunfun!
> 
> (While this chapter has its official title I, insertimaginativenamehere would like to call it Handholding: The Musical. Ive even written a song for it. It goes 'THEY'RE FUCKING NERRRRRRRRDS' and that's about it. But having read the chapter wouldn't u agree it's accurate?)


End file.
